


A Minor Misdemenor

by Firecadet



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 74,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5691721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firecadet/pseuds/Firecadet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After punching a guest at a society party, Jenny is arrested and imprisoned at Newgate. How will she cope with Victorian prison life, and the challenges it brings? How will Clara manage taking over her job at Paternoster Row for a week, acting as assistant/carer/hot water bottle to Madame Vastra.</p><p>Warnings for BDSM references, attempted rape, british humour and Vastra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jenny snuggled into the threadbare, stinking blanket, trying to retain some warmth in the cold cell inside Newgate prison, huddled into a ball on the narrow straw pallet that was serving as her bed for the night, a far cry from the warm, eiderdown quilted bed she normally slept in, at least partially as a hot water bottle for the other occupant, her wife, Madame Vastra. For a few moments, she wondered about taking advantage of the lock picks that lived in the heel of her boots, concealed behind a plug made with boot-blacking and cork, She quickly decided otherwise, though, simply because she would have little chance of actually making it out of the building.

Eventually, she managed to drift off to sleep, pondering how she'd ended up behind bars in the depths of Newgate prison.

* * *

When she deposited the tenth tray of empty glasses in the kitchen, Jenny waved over the new maid, Alex.

"Alex, could you take over the drinks for a bit?" She asked the other girl, trying not to notice the certain resemblance between them. She was sure Vastra was going to behave, though, largely because of some rather grisly threats Jenny had made, involving phrases like 'ice' and 'river'. She had also suggested to the other maid that Vastra was a tad unbalanced, mentally. That hadn't taken much convincing, thanks to what she privately saw as one of the more ridiculous views of the Victorian public, that deformation was a divine punishment, and if someone believed that God didn't like someone, that they were mentally unbalanced was easy to believe as well.

"Where are you going to be if I need you?" Alex asked, looking nervous at the prospect of serving so many drinks to the rich, famous, well-connected and socially mobile elite that crowded the redecorated drawing room and dining room, freed from the greenhouse environment that Vastra usually maintained, and replaced with simply painted walls, hung with what Vastra assured anyone who asked were expert reproduction copies of more famous paintings.

In all honesty, Vastra hadn't stolen them herself. She'd acquired them after the resolution of the Caldwell museum case, when she tracked down the thief, known in the papers as "the ghost", because of his skill at leaving no evidence behind. A forensically aware criminal was almost unheard of in Victorian England, but he'd left a scent trail, after walking into a pot of geraniums inside the museum while relieving the collection of three old masters, worth, in total, around one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

That had been all Vastra needed to track him down.

Unfortunately, when she arrived, a pistol had been discharged at her, filling the room with powder smoke, but doing little to inconvenience a Silurian wearing an FBI issue ballistic vest, even without the ceramic insert.

Jenny had been outside, being inconspicuous by reading a newspaper, with a nine millimetre semiautomatic pistol in a pocket sewn into her dress, which also concealed a fifteen inch bowie knife, along with her own ballistic vest. Any attempt to relieve her of her purse, or any other item, would have ended badly.

Vastra had made sure there were separate dishes at the table that night.

"Down the Pig and Hound." Jenny said. "I need a drink, and some time to think."

"Don't be too long." The other girl pleaded.

"I won't be." Jenny replied, before slipping out of the kitchen door, into the packed stable yard. The variety among horses was surprisingly limited to different stars, with the occasional sock being the only thing to break the almost uniform choice of chestnut horses.

The coachmen were gathered around one of any universe's constants: a metal bin with holes cut into it, with various branches, remains of scrap furniture and quite possibly some of Jenny's firewood keeping the impromptu brazier stoked.

Her heels, short as they were, were still unsuitable for the slightly uneven pavements and roads she had to cross, and she nearly did her ankle in several times, before finally arriving outside the pig and hound.

The pub door was open, allowing both heat and sound to spill out into the cold February evening, with skies clear enough that Jenny had seen stars from the rear terrace of the house. The light of a blazing stove also spilled out into the night, bringing with it a hint of tobacco smoke.

Inside, the taproom was crowded with people, some of them wearing the simple garb of a labourer, with a pint glass in one hand full of small beer, while others wore the less utilitarian garb of the shopkeeper, and had pints of their own. The local policeman, the officer who'd been assigned the paternoster beat for the last year, after fifteen years service in the metropolitan police force, was sitting in a corner, demonstrating the ability of a police officer not to notice anything that might cause them to forget that this is their local.

Jenny wandered up to the bar, making her way with ease through a crowd that knew better than to make the friendly advances pioneered by the half-drunken man, as the last man to pinch her backside, for instance, had needed three weeks before he could resume counting the takings with his right hand, after she broke two fingers and his thumb.

"Evening, Sam." She greeted the bartender, noticing as she did so the small knot of apprentice lawyers and clerks gathered in a corner by themselves, marked out by their distinctive top hats.

"Evening, Miss Flint." Sam replied, smiling at her. "What'll it be?"

"Have you got any sherry?" She asked.

"As it happens, I do." The bartender replied. "We found a case last night."

"I think I'll have some, then." Jenny responded, knowing full well that the case had likely been acquired in a fashion that PC Miller might just have wanted to discuss with the landlord.

Without further ado, a small glass was produced, from under the bar, and a generous measure of sherry was poured into it. The pale liquid was surprisingly cold, with hints of juniper, along with crisp berries. Refreshed, she decided to order another one, which was delivered as smoothly as the first.

When she'd finished her second glass, she examined the vessel more closely, before gently tapping the base with a fingernail. It rang in the same way the best crystal did.

Shaking her head, she put down her glass, before tossing a shilling onto the counter, and heading back.

The return journey was less hazardous, mostly because she had crossed over to the opposite side early on; avoiding the multiple cobbled side-streets and carriageways she'd nearly done herself a mischief on during her walk to the pub.

The slight warmth of the sherry made her a little too relaxed, and she used her key to enter through the front door.

Inside, the party was just as rowdy as the pub she'd just left, although different garb was on display. Ball gowns and tailcoats were much in evidence, as were knots of simpering teenage girls, clad in embroidered gowns likely to cost more than a navvy's annual wage. These knots were orbited by well-dressed boys of a similar age, and here and there, a female would break away from a knot, and ensnare a male in talk of dresses, horses and music. Sometimes, a mature female would swoop down, and separate the pairs with the phrase "and now you must meet..." addressed to one of them, leaving the other to re-enter circulation.

As she pushed, or rather, made her way politely through the crush, Jenny felt a hand on her arm.

She turned, to be faced with a young man who appeared older than most in the room.

"Say, what are you doing in here?" He asked, breathing into her face with breath that smelt of good drink and rich food.

"I'm passing through, sir." She replied, trying not to tense. "I'm Madame Vastra's maid."

"Are you now?" He said. "I'm sure I could find you something different to do, for the next while."

"I don't think so." She replied, firmly. "I need to get back to their kitchens."

"You can't take five minutes to pass the time of day with me?" He asked.

Then he leant forwards. "Cm'here."

She reacted without her brain consulting with the muscle groups involved. Rather than an open-handed, stinging slap, she instead delivered a punch to his face, locking her wrist for maximum effectiveness.

The slap of her first on his face echoed around the suddenly silent room.

"She just punched me!" He yelled.

At the yell, Madame Vastra detached herself from a discussion of lace and hemlines, and glided over.

"Jennifer, did you strike this young gentleman?" She demanded of her erstwhile wife, signalling subtly that this was Ma'am and servant time.

"I did, ma'am." She replied, flushing without putting in any effort at all.

"And why, Jennifer, did you strike the honourable young Mr Brown?"

"I have no excuse, ma'am."

"Indeed. Strax!"

After a moment the sontaran butler arrived at the small cluster of activity around the door.

"You called, ma'am?"

"Strax, go up to the end of the road, and see if Constable Miller is in the pig and hound, will you."

"Yes, ma'am. I will seek out the constable, and bring him back here in..."

"Very good, Strax." Vastra said quickly, over any mention of the Sontaran Empire. "And as for you, Jennifer, you will go up to your room and wait there for the constable."

"Yes, ma'am." Jenny replied with a curtsy, before going up the stairs, heading for the garret that served has as an official home, in which she kept garments for her work as a servant, rather than the bedchamber she and Vastra shared, which was locked when strangers were on the premises to avoid some of the more awkward questions involving leather cat suits, katanas, and some of the gadgetry contained within.

After a few minutes, she heard the rattle of hobnails on the cobbled street, followed by the habitual pounding on a door that is the traditional leitmotif of a large, florid-faced and genial police officer presented with such a portal, regardless of the fact that the butler was in fact standing next to him outside.

Fortunately for the door, Madame had taken on a second maid for the season, who opened the door with a neat curtsy and a smile. A few moments later, Jenny heard the rattle of hobnailed boots on narrow wooden stairs, and rose, nervously to her feet.

"And wot, miss flint, did ya fink ya were doin' tonight?" He asked, smiling slightly. "Ya 'now ya ain't allowed to punch t' nobs, don't ya?"

"I know, officer." She replied, focusing firmly on his boots.

"Look, we all 'now ‘ow’t 'appens. Ya 'ave a drunk youn' man, and 'e lays a 'and on ya. So ya slap 'im. 'E gets t' message, an' backs orf. Problem solved. But no, ya 'ad to go an' punch 'im. An' ya now wha' tha' means."

"It means I'm going before Mr Clarence in the morning." She replied, downcast.

"In one, Miss Flint. Now, if ya woul'n't mind 'olding out ya ands, I'll do t' 'onours."

Reluctantly, Jenny held her hands out, before looking away in embarrassment as a pair of darbies were fastened around her wrists, forming a pair of rings connected by a chain, but just slightly too small to get a hand through, although she suspected that if she tried too hard, she might be able to. Not that she would. It'd be an excellent way to get a clip around the earhole.

To her surprise, Miller led her down the back stairs, solicitously holding onto one of her arms, ensuring that despite her cuffed wrists, the results from a trip or slip would be negligible.

Her training with Madame Vastra paid off, however, and she was able to keep her balance on the narrow stairs, despite the lack of access to a handrail.

When they reached the coach yard, Strax was waiting, having already harnessed the horse into the coupe, and was in the driver's seat, holding the reins of one of the city's most put-upon horses. High speed pursuits, mercy dashes and even sprints to achieve a last moment rescue were a fact of life when you were the horse pulling Madame Vastra's coupe. It was fed on a diet that would have been considered excessive for a champion racehorse, but it just about kept the weight off with mad dashes back and forth across London.

The journey to Newgate prison was short, the coupe rattling along the stones for about five minutes, thanks to the lack of traffic, before arriving outside the forbidding gates of the prison.


	2. Chapter 2

Once Strax had brought the coupe to a standstill inside the prison, Jenny and Constable Miller disembarked onto the uneven cobbles of a prison courtyard, Miller's hand firmly around Jenny's bicep, making any attempt at flight far more challenging, even if she could somehow have escaped from the yard. Above her, watchtowers stood proud from the high, brutal walls, capped with barbed cables set onto the castle-like walls, dampening all thoughts of escape.

It wasn't the first time she'd been inside Newgate prison. She'd accompanied Madame Vastra on visits several times, usually to visit prisoners whose guilt she was unconvinced of, or to watch the executions of those she'd snared, but had handed over to the authorities, rather than carrying out her own, somewhat more unique, brand of justice. It had always scared her when they visited. The cacophony of heavy metal doors slamming shut against equally strong frames, the rattle of hobnailed warder's boots on the metal staircases and walkways had been frightening in its own right, but what made it truly terrifying was the lack of any other sound. There were no yells from prisoners, even those who could see a pair of women walking past their cells, just silence.

When they reached the door, she was surprised that it was a small door, set into a different wing than the central structure that was so terrifying. It was still a large, dark door, with a high lintel that left her feeling her lack of height more than usual, and studded with heavy, blackened nails. But it wasn't the ten foot high main door, usually entered through a wicket gate, with a portcullis above to allow the door to be easily and effectively secured by the warders, in the event of a riot or attempted escape. It was just a large, nail-studded door, with a heavy latch and a peephole set into it.

Inside, there was a large room, with several booths along the walls and a desk at one end, next to a large grill, with a lock that looked designed to defeat lock picks and anything other than the official key. Beside it, behind the desk, was a large, brutal looking man with roughly cut hair, an oft-broken nose, a permanent scowl and several missing teeth.

He looked up when he saw the door opening.

"''Ello, Miss Jenny. Come to pass the time o' day while your mistress pays someone a visit?"

"Hello, Mr Thomas." She replied, trying to make a polite gesture of respect with her cuffed arms, before Miller took a step forward.

"'Ello Mick." Miller said. "Miss Flint here is in a spot of bother. You see, Madame Vastra was holding a cocktail evening, and it seems on of the young men who'd been brought along to dance with young women took a bit of a liking to her, after having had a couple of drinks too many. I saw Miss Flint in the pig and hound earlier, and she polished off two glasses of sherry faster than you can say tally ho. She must have used the front door, and when our wannabe Casanova made a move, she walloped him right in the chops."

"Aye, I'll bet she did. There was one time when she and her mistress were in here talking to someone, when he suddenly came to his feet and tried to attack Madame Vastra. This one," he gestured warmly to Jenny. "She stepped in front of her mistress before we could even react, and by the time we were in the cell, she had him in an arm lock and one knee between his shoulder-blades, and was pushing fit to dislocate his arm before we took over."

"Where did you learn to do that?" Miller asked, curious.

"I went to a small dojo near the docks for a while." She replied. "It was being run by a Japanese woman, some sort of noble, I think, judging from the way her retainers treated her. They didn't mind who they taught, just as long as you were willing to learn and don't mind a few bruises now and again."

"Is it still there?" Thomas asked, seeming intrigued. "My daughter Liz wants to learn a few tricks to keep off the toughs round our way."

"If you take a walk down past the east India docks, it's the small shop with a flag with funny writing on it out front. Ask for Kasumi-San."

"I think I might." He responded. "Would you like a cup of tea, before I do the honours?"

"If you'll trust me with the kettle, I'd much appreciate that." She replied, as Miller loosed her handcuffs. "I know what sort of thing seems to pass for tea around here." She said, rubbing her wrists slightly and smiling at the old joke between her and Thomas.

"I know I'm not up to your standards, anyway." He replied, with a broad smile in return.

"If it's that good, I think I'll have one as well." Miller said

"Madame Vastra is very particular about her tea." Jenny replied, deciding that telling Miller and Thomas exactly where the boxes came from would be unnecessary. They were delivered by the doctor a couple of times a year, labelled; 'Mantellean tea, Mantel system.' and was what he described as the best tea in the universe. It was also brewed, when she would be the only one drinking from the pot, with a few teaspoons of blood. Jenny had steadfastly refused to try the resultant brew, which, according to Vastra, was delicious.

The warder's stash of tea was in the same place as always, inside the end of an old baton hung on the wall next to the small stove. Before she put the filled kettle on the hob, Jenny opened the firebox briefly, before shoving a handful of sticks from the basket next to the stove inside.

After giving things a few minutes, she put the kettle on the hob, before turning to the teapot, sitting on a small shelf just above the truncheon. Gently, she removed the aged bone china, salvaged from a man in a pub, shortly before his arrest for selling stolen property and theft from a horse-drawn conveyance. She winced slightly when she remembered the man had received five years for the theft, and had been lucky to escape the noose. Pushing down her nausea, she used a nearby teaspoon to scoop a teaspoonful for each person into the pot, before adding the now boiling water.

Putting the teapot to one side, she carefully extracted the bottle of milk from under the damp cloth that kept it cool, before pouring a measure of a fingers-breadth into three earthenware mugs, chipped from heavy use, and then letting the tea stand for a couple of minutes.

She spent the time looking out the small stash of rich tea biscuits she knew to live under the sink, before placing one on each of the small plates that accompanied the mugs, before returning to the now brewed pot of tea.

She'd heard the gates briefly open, and the clatter of hooves and iron-rimmed wheels on the cobbles told her that Strax had departed, returning to 13 Paternoster Row with the carriage.

The tea was consumed, and enjoyed by all parties, before Jenny held out her hands for the second time that night, allowing Miller to fasten the handcuffs back around her wrists.

Putting aside his mug, the warder returned to behind his counter.

"What have we got here, constable? He asked, picking up a clipboard with a custody form on it.

"Assault and Battery." Miller replied. "She struck a guest at a party at 13 Paternoster Row."

"Name?" Thomas asked.

"Jenny Flint." Jenny replied, her voice shaking slightly.

"Age?"

"''Bout Twenty five."

"Residence?"

"13 Paternoster Row."

"Occupation?"

"Ladies maid."

"Place of work?"

"13 Paternoster Row."

The information was entered onto the form.

"If you'd follow me, Miss Flint, we can give the officer back his handcuffs."

With a hand firmly on her shoulder, Jenny was taken down a narrow corridor, bounded by metal doors on both sides. The warder's hobnailed boots clattered on the stone floor, sending out tiny chips, several of which penetrated Jenny's stockings and drew blood.

The cell she was finally led into was small, barely large enough for the narrow, shelf-like bed, with a thin straw pallet on top, which was its main feature, along with a bucket in one corner. Behind her, the door slammed shut with a dull clang, before a hatch in the door was opened.

"Put your hands through." Thomas instructed her, before the handcuffs were removed, and the hatch closed, leaving her locked inside the dark cell, with almost no noise around her, except for the receding clatter of the prison officer's boots.


	3. Chapter 3

Strax knew better than to hang around, once Jenny had been dropped off at the prison. Hopefully, Vastra would have cleared the party afterwards, otherwise he could well imagine there being blood everywhere when he got back.

He'd given the temporary maid an instruction to the effect that she should not stay in the house with Vastra alone, and that she should be extremely careful when preparing game or other meat for the table, as she reacted extremely badly to blood. He'd said it in a way that suggested she would freak out and panic, or perhaps suffer an episode of mental illness at the sight or smell of blood, rather than attacking her in an attempt to kill and then eat her, which was far more likely, if still reasonably unlikely, even after an extended period among primates of all kinds.

Frustrated by the situation, he pulled out a small notepad Jenny had given him several months earlier, when she was infiltrating a household as part of a blackmail scheme's dissolution, in order to gain unquestioned access to areas of the house. To aid the deception, she'd brought with her several packets of assorted medical documents about Madame Vastra, along with bills for bull's blood, large amounts of beef and for several unusual leather items from a small shop in Soho many aristocrats had not visited or purchased items in.

In fairness, none of the information had been damaging, and Vastra had spent several days drafting the medical documents, ensuring that everything in them was false, misleading and/or unpublishable in a newspaper.

As for the leather items… well, the shop didn't keep records, did it?

When he reached the house, Vastra was in the kitchen.

Unfortunately for the kitchen, Jenny had never got round to teaching Vastra how to actually operate some of the more technical features, such as the primus stove she'd recently imported from Sweden to increase the speed at which she could prepare tea.

As an almost inevitable result, when Strax pushed open the door, he immediately ducked the still alight primus, which whistled past him at head height, before thankfully hitting a wool tapestry, then landing on one of the brightly coloured wool rugs.

"What sort of useless ape designed that thing?" she hissed, claws out and clearly looking for something to kill. "First it wouldn't light, then, when I stuck it in the fire, it got really hot and started to hiss."

"Milady, please." Strax said, entirely unsure how to calm her down. That had always been Jenny's job. "It was a mistake." He continued, quickly stepping over to the device and stamping on it until it went out.

There were several minutes of incoherent hissing and odd sounds, then Vastra seemed to calm down slightly.

"Strax, get me the number two grappling hook, the metal saw, and my swords. I'll be getting into my hunting clothes."

The idea, initially, didn't seem a bad one to Strax. Leave a member of the unit in the lurch, and in enemy hands? Never! However, there was also the consideration that the likelihood of Vastra being caught, injured or otherwise troubled was high, as he rather strongly suspected that a prison would have considerable security to protect against the more nimble type of thief gaining entry or egress without permission or consent. While Vastra had certain advantages over a skilled cat burglar, such as an enhanced sense of smell, and vision at least partially in the infra-red part of the spectrum, not to mention her chances of fighting off a guard unlucky enough to disturb her being somewhat higher, he rather suspected that the result would be her in prison for attempted jail breaking.

When he arrived at her chambers, she was already dressed to conduct an intrusion, wearing the leather suit she favoured when ease of movement and protection against simple weapons were required, and was buckling her sword-harness around her waist, carefully securing it so as to prevent any movement that might hinder her during combat.

"Your Cocoa, Milady." Strax said, holding out the cup of milk and chocolate powder that Jenny had managed to begin giving her lover lately, to help her sleep.

"Strax, where is my sword?" she demanded, looking just as furious as she had downstairs ten minutes earlier.

"In the armoury, Milady." He replied. "While normally rescuing unit members is optimal procedure, in this case, the risk of capture is too high to proceed. The enemy will release her soon enough, milady. It isn't like she killed him or anything like that."

"Strange…" she mused, accepting the warm mug and blowing on it to quickly cool it. ”Normally, I rely on Jenny being around to talk me out of crazy ideas. Now she's gone for a while, and you take over the role."

"As it is only a temporary tasking, I can deal with it, Milady."

"Now, Strax, unless you want to help undress me, it'd be most pleasing if you'd go and polish your weapons again."

"Yes, Milady."

Still nursing her cocoa, Vastra crawled into her bed, before fetching out an extremely thick duvet from where it lived under the bed, before crawling under it, leaving her cocoa on the night table briefly, before turning out the modern gas lamp above her bed.

The cocoa was consumed rapidly, once the lights were out or at least fading, due to the manner of operation of the incandescent gas mantle.

Only an ape, in Vastra's opinion at least, would consider using a radioactive substance in a light fitting, but on a social visit (excepting the cyberman on the loose in the royal armouries.) the doctor had lent her a Geiger counter, allowing her the peace of mind that sleeping within a few feet of one was not going to cause Jenny any health problems, particularly after the inclusion of an ornamental reflector that happened to be made of highly polished lead, and half an inch thick, although he had helped her install a ventilator above the mantle, owing to the sudden surge of radiation when it was switched on.

As she turned over, after finishing her cocoa, she attempted to snuggle closer to Jenny, before realising that the human was currently in a cell somewhere inside Newgate prison. The motion briefly stoked her anger, before the Silurian-safe sleeping pills Strax had slipped into her cocoa put her out for the count.


	4. Chapter 4

Jenny woke up sore.

When she sat up, her surroundings were strange. Bare, whitewashed walls surrounded her too close for comfort, and the smell from one of the corners suggested that it hosted a rarely cleaned bucket used to store human waste. The only window was small, set high up in the wall opposite the heavy, white painted metal door, with a hatch set into it. There were bars on the window, and the sight of them brought her memories of the previous night crashing back; the blow, her arrest, a friendly enough chat with a friend on the force, before she was booked in, and led to a cold, unwelcoming cell, then locked in for the night.

A clatter in the corridor brought her back from her reverie, and she rummaged under the uncomfortable bed for a bowl and spoon, finding them, and quickly fetching them out. They hadn't been cleaned recently, if ever, but she fought down the sudden bout of nausea by reminding herself of the time she had spent as a match-girl, and admittedly, though only to herself, a prostitute. Clean plates had been an unimaginable luxury for that skinny sixteen year old, as had warm food and any sort of bed.

The hatch flattered open, and a warder she didn't recognise looked in through it.

"Plate." He instructed her, holding up a jug of porridge, half congealed, and with flecks of colour she did not want to look too closely at.

Wordlessly, she held the bowl up the hatch, receiving a portion of perhaps three ounces of oatmeal.

The smell was not the welcoming aroma she associated with properly made porridge. It smelt of ergot, and she suspected that Vastra would have detected multiple additional aromas that would have been even more concerning. Despite her qualms, she forced herself to eat, knowing that another meal might be a day away. It was a set of programming she'd grown extremely attuned to on the streets of London.

The taste was about as far possible from the smooth, pleasant taste she associated with the porridge she produced for herself and Vastra in the kitchens of 13 Paternoster row, and she smiled at the memory of Vastra complaining about the idea of eating the seeds of a type of grass soaked in lactate, before being won somewhat grudgingly to the idea that it might actually taste good, and be worth eating. The addition of honey, along with a small amount of the powdered bone meal that served her as a main condiment, had completed the dish for the Silurian.

It took her several minutes, despite the extremely small serving, to gag down the food, before she gathered herself upright and began working to make herself at least moderately presentable for her appearance in court, in front of the Major the Right Honourable Geoffrey Clarence, a retired officer who'd served in Afghanistan and India, and brought an inflexible, if somewhat kind, approach to his role as magistrate for the district court.

Once she'd brushed off most of the straw and other assorted debris, such as brick dust, she sat back on the bed, waiting for someone to come and collect her.

Eventually, the rattle of keys in locks and the harsh clatter of hobnailed boots on stone floors and metal walkways died away, to be replaced with a surprisingly cheerful whistle as the guard who'd doled out the rancid, mouldy and quite possibly rat dropping containing porridge stamped is way down the corridor in a rattle and slam of hatches, the jingling of a heavy, well-populated keyring, and the ring of hobnailed boots on the old, worn granite floors. When he got to her cell, to her sudden alarm, he stopped, looking carefully through the hatch.

"Well, now. What do we have here?" He said, the tone dripping with the petty malice of the small-minded tin-god.

"I'm a ladies maid, sir." She replied, keeping her voice low.

"Not feeling "lonely" at all? Don't want some comforting?"

"I don't, sir." She told him, tensing in the same way she would have if confronted in an back-alley by a large man, with no clothes on and a hard on, wielding a butcher's knife.

"Well, you look cute enough." He lowered, reaching a hand into the cell. "You keep nice and quiet, and I won't find you knocked over your slips bucket in the night, and slipped, breaking your neck."

"Come in here and try it." She said, suddenly angry. "I'm Jenny Flint. I'm married to a lizard-woman from the dawn of time, and I survived the Battle of Demon's Run. I've fought against creatures that would tear you apart as soon as look at you, and I'm still here. You think some overweight, over-muscled and oversexed screw is going to be able to make me do anything I don't want you to?"

"You what?" He said, staggering back, trying to forget the momentary feeling that the small girl had just become far larger and far more threatening than he could ever have imagined.

"I'm too much trouble for you." She said. "You want to go and have a cup of tea." She punctuated the phrase with a gesture that would be entirely meaningless to the guard, and to anyone else, for about seventy years. The Doctor had taken her and Vastra to watch Star Wars in the original cinematic release. Vastra had burst out laughing at the lightsaber sequences, and had received a firm slap around the tympanic membrane for her trouble from Jenny, and had a pop-corn bucket placed on her head by Clara.

Of course, the toy lightsabers that had appeared in the house since had not been brought when Vastra disappeared briefly at the end of the film, and she had not seen her knock several expensive vases over when what could only be described as playing with them. Nor had she asked the doctor if: a. She could have a real one, b. Where she could get one or c. Couldn't he take her to a universe where real ones existed and get her one. She smiled slightly. Her funny old lizard had a habit of turning into a teenager in a cutlers at the oddest moments.

Then there was a rattle of nails on stone, and the unamused bellow of the greater helmeted prison warder came echoing down the corridor.

"Sykes, I told you what would happen if I found you in here again unless you were busy doing something useful!" Thomas bellowed down the corridor.

"Mike, I was only..."

"I know your sort, Sykes. I know you'd be hung for looting a widow's wedding ring if they let you join the army, or slung off the yardarm for raping a barmaid in the navy." The contempt in the voice was sufficient to make Jenny take a step back, and Sykes quailed back from the speaker, one arm rising in instinctive defence.

"Mike..."

"It has never been Mike to you, Sykes. It's Mr Thomas. And if you call me Mike again, I'll put my truncheon so far up your arse that it'll come out a nostril." The last sentence was delivered with a cold, calm intensity that was far more intimidating than a regimental sergeant major's barking roar could ever be. It was a promise.

"I was just passing the time of day with the prisoner, Mr Thomas." He lied, in response to the A's yet unspoken question.

"Pull the fucking other one; it has a bell on it." Thomas replied. "I know you, Sykes. I know you were suggesting something that would make the padre faint, and I know I can't prove it. It'd be your word against hers, and you'd probably be believed, given you've never been caught."

"I was just going, anyway. Good to meet you, Miss Flint." Sykes almost gabbled, before hurrying away, heading for a different part of the massive building.

"Goddammed piece of worthless trash." Thomas muttered. "Sorry about that, miss. He thinks he can use his position and size to take advantage of vulnerable girls like you."

"If he'd come in here..." She said.

"You'd be in a whole heap of trouble. The world would be a better place if he had two broken arms, a smashed nose, and whatever other injuries you'd have inflicted, but you'd probably be facing a few years for it, and he ain't worth that." He smiled, or at least showed his teeth in a way that could be called a smile, in a technical manual on facial expressions. "Still, I'm sure he'll fall over in one of the corridors in the Georgian wing soon enough. I know two or three other warders here who'd be happy to help give him a shoeing."

"I can imagine." She replied, suddenly feeling the adrenaline leaving her body.

To her surprise, Thomas had the cell door open in a heartbeat.

"Easy, miss Jenny." he whispered in her ear. "He's gone now." She realised that she was in his arms, sobbing in fear.

They stayed that way for about a minute, before Thomas helped her back to her feet. "Major Clarence will see you in half an hour." He said, gesturing for her to put her wrists together. "It's a pain, but the law is the law."

Without anything more than a slight quaver, she allowed herself to be handcuffed, and didn't resist as a set of manacles were clamped around her ankles, limiting her stride.

Once she was bound, she was led out of her cell, and towards the magistrate's court.


	5. Chapter 5

Encumbered by the heavy shackles, Jenny was led back down the corridor she'd taken the previous night, with one hand on her shoulder for support, rather than as a show of authority. The irons fastened around her ankles considerably shortened her stride, and made walking far more challenging as a result. With her hands secured together close in front of her, and connected by a chain to her ankles, any stumble would likely end in a broken nose or damaged eye, as she simply wouldn't be able to catch herself in the same way a person with their hands free would be able to.

"Careful, Miss." Thomas said; his voice almost fatherly. "This corridor through here is right uneven, so it is. Someone might do himself a mischief through here one of these days."

Carefully, he guided her through the section of pitted, weathered stone slabs, with sand crunching underfoot.

"Apparently, this was an exercise yard once, back in the days of King George. When they built the cells, they left the old slabs down. Easier than shiftin' em, I guess. These are proper granite blocks."

After they'd finished navigating the cells, they exited the building through the same door she'd entered by, hours earlier.

The massive gatehouse, made from dark rock, and streaked with lichen and guano, looked even more intimidating by day than it did by night. At night, you couldn't see the half perceived glimpse of eyes, the brief, if dull, flash of light as a rifle tracked you across the courtyard, the man behind it seemingly praying that you'd do something stupid, or simply attack the warder escorting you, and give him an excuse to pull the trigger, sending a high velocity round just under fifteen millimetres across, and made from soft lead, tearing at better than four hundred metres per second into and through the body of any miscreant.

In front of her, a black horse, towering above her, stamped a huge foot, sending sparks into the air off of the hard cobbles of the prison yard, then snorted, sending out a vast plume of steam, which joined with the plumes rising from around its body, a result of the cold February morning.

She was led around the back of the horse, to the rear of a heavy black wagon, with four foot diameter wheels rimmed with thick, pitted tyres of beaten iron, as black as the rest of the intimidating cart.

The gate at the rear of the cart was down, along with a more tiered step than seen on most wagons, allowing a shackled prisoner to enter and exit the cart without having their ankles freed. There was a handhold just within reach of a pair of hands shackled close together and connected to a prisoner's ankles, and she used it to pull herself up into the cart.

The smell when she was inside, even with the rear gate open, was appalling. Vomit mixed with stale beer and spirits, alongside smells generated by a lack of hygiene, and those from illnesses such as gangrene. The sickly sweet stench of the last nearly caused her to lose the measly breakfast she'd gagged down, but by a dint of willpower, she kept it in.

Once she was aboard, the rear door was slammed shut, leaving the only source of light inside the twenty foot long box as the small, barred window barely a foot to a side set into the door, and another, currently closed, next to the driver's seat.

The journey over the rough cobbles of central London was a penance in its own right, with the wagon bouncing from side to side on over-stressed leaf springs, nearly dislodging Jenny several times from her perch on the crude bench that ran along both sides of the compartment. Several of her fellow travellers weren't so lucky, and went sprawling, either into the laps of prisoners next to them, or those opposite. The occasional rattle of a stone bouncing off of the thick oak planking only added to the feeling of sheer terror.

Finally, after what seemed an age, the wagon lurched to a standstill, and the rear door was opened by two uniformed police officers, both showing every sign of a having been heavily involved in persuading villains that resisting arrest was not in their best interests. They were both holding a truncheon, a clear reminder that to disobey their instructions was a very simple way to get whacked around the head with twenty-eight inches of Lignum vitae, with a few ounces of lead set into the head of the shaft for good measure.

Carefully, avoiding any movement that might be perceived as a threat, Jenny clambered down from the wagon, before being passed to a court official, a large man who looked like he moonlighted as a prize-fighter, wearing an ill-fitting uniform that looked out of place worn by a man with scarred knuckles and a nose three inches wide, along with assorted tattoos. He wrapped one of his hands, almost a paw, around her shoulder, being barely able to fit more than three fingers onto it, before jerking her, without even trying to keep her on her feet, in the direction of the stairs leading into the magistrate's court.

Her hands, without her even thinking about it, rose from her waist, where they had been clasped, a comfortable position, even in handcuffs, to trying to reach the seized shoulder, in order to turn the hold into a decidedly less pleasant experience for the holder.

Unfortunately, the chain collecting her wrists to her ankles intervened, preventing the bailiff from receiving a broken shoulder, which she could quite easily have caused even with her hands secured together.

Once she had been dragged inside the building, she was led down a corridor, where a small room, fitted with a heavy, narrow bench, awaited her through a barred door.

She was thrown inside, unable to keep her feet, before the grill was slammed shut behind her, and a bolt went across, keeping her confined to the space barely bigger than her bed at 13 paternoster row.

She was left inside for about half an hour, before the rattle of heeled boots on a hard wooden floor approached the cells. Jenny recognised the pattern easily.

"Ma'am." She said, with surprising exuberance, as Vastra came into view, before being let into the cell.

"Jennifer." She replied, waiting for the guard to go back to his concealed flask of cheap gin. "You know better than to strike young men like that."

"I do, Ma'am." She replied, shame-faced. "I shouldn't have used my knuckles to strike him; I should have used the full width of the first joint instead."

To her great lack of surprise, the Silurian pressed herself against the human, once the guard was out of sight. Her skin felt almost clammy, but still dry and smooth.

"I've missed you, love." She said, gently nibbling her maid's ear-lobe. "I needed you by my side last night."

"With all respect, Ma'am, I'm your wife, not your hot water bottle. I missed you too, of course."

Vastra hissed slightly, as Jenny inveigled a cuffed hand into her wife's hand, and squeezed, gently.

"You daft old lizard, I tol' you to wrap up warm if I weren't there, not to run around on a mornin' like this getting cold."

After a few more moments, the clatter of footsteps, and presumably, the very familiar smell of gin, alerted Vastra to the return of the guard, who'd clearly decided that a shilling was only worth a few minutes of visiting time. She quickly disentangled herself from her maid, before exiting the cell without a backwards glance, and leaving Jenny in possession of a five inch sonic hatpin, quite capable of unlocking her restraints and quite possibly blowing out the door.

Instead, she bent over, and used it to fix her hair into a more presentable form than all-over-the-place-with straw-in-it.

Finally, though, after she'd been alone with her thoughts for a full hour, and, admittedly, amused herself with the Gameboy Madame Vastra had also slipped her, she finally heard the guard being instructed to "Fetch out Miss Flint." She slipped the device into her bodice, where it would be less likely to be found, before being led out of her cell, and towards the court.


	6. Chapter 6

As she swept out of the cell-block, Vastra knew that the chances of Jenny actually using her opportunity to escape would be low. The police knew where she lived, and any attempt at flight would likely be short lived.

The cold made her waspish, however. As such, she acknowledged an offer of a cup of tea with an abrupt flick of the hand, before hurrying into a different section of the court.

Rather than wood or stone, this section had carpets, woven from soft red wool, and with a pattern of coiling lines running along the edges, next to the panelled walls decorated with ornate devotional images in gilt frames. They made absolutely no sense to her, although she was able to appreciate the effort and skill that had gone into them. Ape religion was very much a closed book to her, with the pious sermons preaching love, charity and kindness in stark contrast to the everyday activities of the church. She'd never seen a priest coming out of a workhouse with a large empty sack smelling of bread or other wholesome foods, although she'd seen more than a few coming out of houses of ill repute, smelling as if they'd been fully partaking of the services offered within.

When she got to her destination, she was expected. A liveried footman opened the door into the chambers, and she marched through, feeling the pleasing warmth from within, before taking a seat very close to the roaring coal fire.

"Major." She said; throwing back her veil once the door was closed. "We have matters to discuss."

"I assume you are her about your maid." He replied, earning a certain amount of respect by not sitting backwards or otherwise visibly reacting, although his sent indicated a mixture of wonder and confusion, with only a tiny amount of fear flavouring them.

"I am."

"I understand she struck the third son of the earl of Uxbridge."

"She did not realise who he was. He was a drunk, pawing at her and trying to grab her arm."

"So she had no option but to punch him in the face?"

"Major, she has somewhat unusual training. At the moment she threw that punch, that training was reacting to a perceived threat, rather than Jenny attacking a man."

"I can hardly acquit her, Madame. The honourable Mr Brown is still receiving treatment for his injuries, and his father is extremely important at court."

"I wasn't suggesting that you simply release her." Vastra replied, her earlier waspishness creeping back into her tone. "As a warrior cadet, she must learn that actions have consequences, particularly when she mis-uses her training. However, I believe that you were an intimate of Sir Alex Knight."

"What about it?" He asked, a certain amount of trepidation creeping into his scent, overpowering the smell of suspicion that he'd begun to radiate.

"I'm not threatening you, major. I'm simply stating a fact."

"I was." He replied. "So were half the men in my club."

"But most of those men lost money when Sir Alex fled overseas to India."

"Are you accusing me of involvement in his crimes?" He hissed, trying to project anger, although the heady wave of fear radiating from him left him looking rather pathetic in her eyes.

"I wasn't, until a few moments ago. Your fear when I mentioned his name was most artfully disguised behind a facade of anger, but not nearly well enough to fool me."

"What do you want from me?" He asked, seeing a possible way out."

"How long were you going to give Jenny?" She asked. "And I would encourage you to show honesty in answer to every question I ask. I will know if you don't."

"Six months to a year, depending on her behaviour while imprisoned."

"I think you would have given her victim an awful lot less than that."

"A fine, perhaps, for striking one of his peers or no punishment at all, if he'd struck out against a shopkeeper." He admitted.

"I do not ask you to show that sort of mercy here. Jenny must learn to control her actions. However, I think a short spell of imprisonment is all I can tolerate being apart from my ape for."

"A month?" He asked, trying to hold onto some semblance of control.

"A week. It will teach her a lesson without unduly risking harm to her. She isn't going to overly suffer if you tack hard labour onto that time."

"And in exchange?"

His reply was a smile, showing teeth not dissimilar to those of some of the skulls in the natural history museum. "In exchange, I will keep your secret secure."

"This is blackmail." He said, sitting back slightly.

"Put your hands on top of the desk." She snapped, her sharp ears having heard the slight rattle of a desk draw being stealthily slid open.

"And if I call the men outside to arrest you?"

"Then everyone in the public gallery will hear what I have to say."

The response was a slamming of the desk draw, which she suspected, from some of the chemical smells that had begun to creep into the room, had contained a firearm of some kind.

"You appear to have the advantage, then, Madame." He said, his voice suddenly even and calm. "We must play a game of chess together at some point in the future."

"That would indeed be interesting, major." She replied. "I apologise for my actions, but I need Jenny around the place to help me."

"I understand fully." The magistrate replied, smiling slightly. "My wife has such a maid."

Then have we reached a deal?" Vastra asked.

"I think we have." The magistrate replied, and they shook hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In British law, there is a principle known as absolute privilege. It exempts anything said during a trial or session of parliament from being prosecutable for libel or defamation. As such, a judge would not be allowed to prevent Vastra from speaking, regardless of her motivations, any statement that she was making in a mitigation speech, and it would be nearly impossible to stop the media publishing any statement she made from the dock. In Victorian society, such a claim would end someone's respectability and exclude them from society, even before Scotland yard got involved.


	7. Chapter 7

As she was ushered into the dock, Jenny caught a brief glimpse of Vastra, sitting in the part of the public gallery nearest the dock. The door behind her was shut and bolted, leaving her suddenly feeling very alone and nervous. The railing that surrounded the chest high, on her at least, wooden frame of the dock made escape almost impossible, at least without a lock pick, several confederates in the courtroom, and several minutes between their exit and the alarm being raised.

It took perhaps two minutes for the magistrate to arrive, giving her ample time to glance around the room.

Those looking at the dock saw a small woman, wearing the uniform of a privately employed housemaid, with her hair full, despite what were clearly her best efforts, of straw, although it was pinned up in a neat bob to the rear of her head. Her face did not immediately strike any of the variety of onlookers as more than attractive, but there was something about her pose that spoke volumes about her, as did the way she simply stood, shackled hands clasped in front of her, with her head bowed, and her lips moving slightly, obviously to the onlookers, in prayer.

Vastra's hearing, on the other hand, was considerably better than the human norm, or even the extremes of human possibility.

"Ma'am, I don't know what you're doing here," she was saying, almost too quietly even for Vastra to hear. "But I'm sure that the magistrate would have enjoyed his whiskey a whole lot more if he hadn't had that visit from you. Don't look at me like that, I know you, you daft old thing, and I know full well why they never caught the honourable Sir Alex Knight, because I do the books, and the laundry."

She grinned slightly, before continuing.

"I don't want you to try and break me out, seeing as, if I know you, I'm going to be facing something a lot less serious than what I might have been otherwise. I don't think you'd have got me off with a fine, but I doubt I'm going to suffer too much."

Finally, there was a clatter from the official door.

"All rise." The usher announced, before Major the Right Honourable Geoffrey Clarence swept into the court, fully robed and bewigged, before sitting down in his official chair, and a good five feet above Jenny.

Once everyone was seated again, the usher began proceedings.

"Are you Miss Jennifer Flint, employed and living at 13 Paternoster Row?"

"Yes. She replied, the chains around her wrists and ankles suddenly seeming considerably heavier.

"The charges against the defendant are as follows: That on or about the 16th of February this year, the defendant, Miss Jennifer Flint, did bodily strike The Honourable Mr Gregory Brown, while Mr Brown was attending an event at 13 Paternoster Row, where the defendant is employed as a ladies maid. This blow resulted in bruising to the face of the victim and the drawing of blood from his nose."

"How does the defendant plead: Guilty, or Not Guilty?"

"Guilty."

"Are there any factors that the defendant would like to bring to the attention of the court in mitigation?"

"Only that I have been working hard in the service of Madame Vastra for several years now, and she has had nothing but praise for my industry and determination."

"Very well. The court accepts the guilty plea."

"Miss Flint." The magistrate said, glaring down at her from his position above of the dock. "Your actions in this case are completely unacceptable in modern society. However, I am assured that you are essential to the running of Thirteen Paternoster Row, and that you are indeed industrious and hard working. Furthermore, you have no previous convictions. As such, you are hereby sentenced to one week's hard labour. Consider it a token of the future punishment that may be doled out if you breach the laws of this land again." He gestured to the clerk.

"All rise."

There was a clatter and rustle as about three dozen people rose to their feet, before the magistrate marched out of the room.


	8. Chapter 8

To her surprise, Jenny felt nothing but relief at the verdict that had been handed down to her. Yes, she was going back to prison, but she was going to be free almost before she knew it, rather than languishing behind bars for months on end.

The lock behind her clicked, and a heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder as she was led straight down to the cells, without passing through any of the public areas of the prison, before being inserted into the same tiny cell she'd occupied before the ten minute hearing.

Swearing slightly under her breath, she curled up on the bench, giving her enough room to reach her Gameboy, before continuing where she'd left off, deliberately challenging another trainer, in order to pit her team against theirs.

She had sufficient battery life and additional batteries to last a total of ninety hours, assuming, of course, that Vastra had remembered that she needed to change the batteries anyway.

Three duels, a dozen wild Pokémon and a cleared dungeon later, she heard the jangle of keys that preceded the arrival of a court bailiff.

Quickly, she tucked the Gameboy into a small case she and Vastra had had made for it, carefully disguising it as a small bible, before closing the top of the case, completing the illusion. It would even open, at least as far as her favourite books were concerned. She opened it to a section that, according to the Doctor, was talking about an alien invasion he'd foiled.

When the bailiff arrived, all he could see was a young woman, bent over a bible and leafing through it.

The door was opened, abruptly, before she was ordered to stand, and dragged out of the cell once she was upright. If anything, as a convicted criminal, rather than a simple suspect, she was treated even more unpleasantly by the man dragging her along out of the court. A stumble, previously responded to by a half-break in the man's stride, was simply ignored, causing her shackles to cut briefly into her wrists, drawing blood.

The wagon waiting in the rear, enclosed yard of the magistrates’ court was a different design, with multiple barred windows, each letting into a different small compartment. Several of the doors were still open, and she was basically hurled through one of them, barely being given enough time to remove her feet from the doorway before it was slammed shut, then the bolt was driven home, and padlocked shut.

Inside the cramped space, there was a simple bench, set into the wall directly opposite the door, with a small handle set into it.

She was simply left alone for around ten minutes, with the only sound she could hear being the periodic banging of the heavy oak doors, before a sudden surge as the wagon leapt into motion without warning, sending her slamming into one of the three inch thick oak walls, before she managed to grab onto the metal handle bolted to the seat, and use everything she'd learnt from Vastra to pin herself into the seat.

The ride seemed faster than her previous journey, and it was only a few minutes before she was back outside the intimidating gatehouse of Newgate prison. From within the tiny compartment, she heard the groan of the gates as they opened on poorly oiled hinges. The wagon picked up speed again, and the compartment momentarily darkened as the gates blocked all light to her cell, before they were through.

On the inside, the guard force was much in evidence, with several of the warders cradling shotguns, broken open, with the glint of fresh brass cartridges visible.

In turn, each compartment was opened, and a manacled prisoner was led through the doors, into the building. Each successive transfer made Jenny quake slightly, and a pocket of dread began to build up in her stomach, growing deeper each time a prisoner was taken through the small wicket gate into the building.

Finally, she heard the rattle of the padlock on her compartment, and the door was pulled open by a warder she recognised.

"Mr Davies." She greeted him, trying to stay calm. The warder looked like someone you'd expect to see on the far side of the bars, with a nose at least an inch wider than his face suggested it should be, and missing several of his front teeth, which were exposed by his broad smile.

"This is unexpected, Jenny." He replied, as he supported her down from the compartment. "I'd have thought working in a large house precluded free enterprise."

"I'm not in for that, sir." She replied, unable to keep her face from reddening, as her feet finally touched the rough cobbles. "I punched the third son of the Earl of Uxbridge at a party at Paternoster Row last night." She explained; her face colouring with embarrassment. "I hit him too well, but not well enough, if you understand."

"I think I know what you mean." The warder, a veteran of dozens of brawls in the east end, replied.

As he led her towards the gateway she privately thought of as the Gates of Mordor, her stride shortened, just slightly, before she fought down her fear and pushed on, remembering an litany on the subject Vastra had borrowed from a mid-twentieth century science fiction novel.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." she recited, quietly, allowing herself to picture the look on Vastra's face whenever Jenny failed at a task, such as picking a lock, or cracking a safe.

Vastra had tried to learn how to do both, but had broken fifteen sets of lock-picks in various ways, and permanently buggered the locking mechanisms of three safes, requiring a Sontaran laser cutter to open them in order to recover the jewellery Jenny had locked in them.

Strangely, the litany did calm her, and she stepped through the gates with her head high.

Instead of the visitors' room, she was taken down a different corridor, and led into a small room, with a grill for a door.

"I'm going to have to ask you to disrobe." Davies told her.

Her face coloured, turning a bright crimson at the sort of taking all of her clothes off in front of a man, despite her sojourn to a holiday resort in Italy in the seventies.

"Jenny, in case it escapes you, and not to put it bluntly, I'm not going to see anything I haven't seen before."

Silently, she held out her arms, and just shook them, causing the heavy chains to clink. Without saying a word, the warder unlocked them, before kneeling down and disconnecting the chain from her ankles, leaving her able to fully remove all of her clothing.

Once she was naked, she covered herself, one hand over her groin, the other covering both nipples.

"Is there anything in your clothing I'm going to find?" he asked, after she'd handed over the hatpin.

"Only my pocket bible." She replied, having been relieved of the rest of her possessions when she was booked in the previous night.

"Right." He said. "Go through that door."

She nodded, admittedly reluctantly, before proceeding into a small room about the size of a coffin.

Once she was inside, the door slammed shut behind her, dropping down from above, shortly followed by a deluge of lukewarm, soapy water. The deluge continued for several minutes, before finally ceasing, leaving Jenny's eyes stinging from the harsh carbolic soap.

When the door opened again, she was greeted with a large, ragged towel, along with a set of clothes very different to her own. The luxury fabrics Vastra had dressed her ape in for some time were replaced with a crude, ragged dress, a tiny bit shorter than society would approve of, and showing far too much shin to be permissible outside of a prison. There were a number of rags, which she used to tie her breasts roughly into position, and to provide some modesty in other areas.

Once she was dressed, Davies knelt down, and reconnected her manacles, linking her ankles together, but not restraining her hands.

Once she was restrained, she was led down a corridor, before being confronted with a paddlewheel construction, with a number of cubicles spaced along it, most of which were occupied by a prisoner. She was led, by the shoulder, to one of the few compartments that were vacant.

"Prisoner Flint, when I say begin, you will climb onto the wheel, and you will begin walking on it until I tell you to stop. Any talking will be punished. Begin."

Wordlessly, she clambered onto the device, grabbing onto the handle running roughly at chest height along the length of the machine, and began to walk, each step causing her manacles to cause discomfort.

After eight hours, she was allowed to leave the machine, her entire body aching, and her mouth dry, before being led into a cell.

If anything, the small room that was to be her home for the next week was more spartan than the room she'd spent the previous night in, with no mattress, just a hard wooden bunk, an open hole leading into a sewer, leaving the cell permanently stinking of sewage, and absolutely nothing else.

It was at that point, exhausted, and unable to help herself, that she finally gave in, and just began crying, curled up on her bunk.


	9. Chapter 9

The insistent ringing of the phone dial was everything Strax needed to know: Madame Vastra was trying to make a phone call.

Normally, this was one of the many duties fulfilled by Jenny, on the basis that she understood how to operate a phone, dial a number, ask the operator to put her through to it, and then hand over the phone to Vastra, once all of the tricky bits were out of the way.

"[Person of low birth and immoral demeanour] thing." Vastra hissed, before yelling; "Strax, do you know how to operate the phone?"

The sontaran butler appeared at that point.

"Let's see…" I think you pick up the handset, and talk into it."

"Give me that." Vastra hissed. "Hello, operator, could you get me…" she looked down at a card on which the number she was trying to call was written. "Buckingham Palace 8638."

"One moment, Madam." The operator replied. "Connecting you now."

Mars, 3576, the large comet observatory.

The insistent ringing of the TARDIS phone brought the Doctor out of a state of wonder, while he was looking at the various objects that had been filmed in the last month. Even for a Time Lord, beauty could still be found in the universe in surprising places.

After hoping whoever was trying to ring him would give up, (it sometimes worked) he finally gave in, and answered the phone, taking it inside the TARDIS and placing it on the console, just before he stole one of Clara's chips.

"This is the Doctor." he said.

"Doctor, it's Vastra." He heard, in the breathy Scottish accent of the Silurian detective. "We've had a setback."

"What kind of setback?" he asked, leaning over the console and pulling several levers, before swiping another chip.

"Jenny has been arrested."

"What did she do?" the Doctor asked, curiously.

"She punched someone." Vastra replied. "I forget she is still a warrior cadet at heart, despite her skills."

"I see. And this person made a complaint?"

"I had to." Vastra replied, layering her voice with guilt. "If I hadn't called the police, people would wonder."

"I see. What sort of help will you be needing?"

"I need someone who can operate ape kitchen appliances, for a start. I also need a person who won't object to the occasional chase through London, or helping to tackle a criminal."

Clara spun around at that point, glaring at the Doctor.

"No. I am not going." She hissed.

"I'm sure Clara would be very happy to help you out." He replied, grinning, before making another chip vanish.

"Doctor!" Clara hissed. "I need to be in the classroom in a few hours."

Another chip vanished with the reply. "You're not going to miss your lesson."

"And you can be sure of that, can you?" she demanded. "I remember sending you for coffee, and you delivering it three weeks later after I'd had to make my way back from Glasgow."

"Relax, I just took a detour." He explained, before she slapped his hand away from her chips.

"Have you ever had to explain to a police officer why you don't have anything to prove how you travelled to Glasgow, after being randomly detained at the train station because someone saw the size of your rucksack and thought it was full of drugs?"

"Never mind that, Clara. I promise that I will get you back to the school, in time to deliver your lesson."

"Right…" She said, somewhat unconvinced. "I'll be holding you to that."

"I know you will." He replied, before pulling the lever that would send the TARDIS where he wanted it to go, having plugged in the co-ordinates for Vastra's stable yard.

When the doctor opened the doors, he looked out onto a scene of war. Roman legionaries, in a massive line, were drawn up opposite a horde of Celts, each group gathered around their tribal banners. There was a lot of pointing, along with a group of cavalry scouts riding up to take a look, before the romans seemed to come to a rather unpleasant conclusion.

"I wish people wouldn't do that." The Doctor muttered, noticing the subtle redirection of several nearby pieces of light field artillery. "Clara, inside, now." He snapped, noticing her having darted outside with her camera-phone, before taking some footage of the scene.

At the sight of her, however, several groups of Celts had begun to advance.

When the rest of the army noticed the forward creep of a few elements, they charged towards the romans, screaming incoherent war-cries that promised all sorts of nasty fates.

About the time they reached the TARDIS, and Clara was back aboard, the Doctor pulled the lever again, and the TARDIS vanished.

When they opened the doors again, Clara thought at first that they were in a forest during an earthquake. Massive limbs moved past the TARDIS, accompanied by subsonic booming noises that shook the time machine like a washing machine.

"Wow!" Clara breathed, before darting outside to take a photo. "David Attenborough, eat your heart out."

"Titanosaurs." The doctor said, stepping out of the TARDIS himself. "Some of the largest organisms in history… Don't do that!" he said, as Clara held out a handful of fronds to a curious juvenile. A subsonic rumble quickly hurried the small dinosaur on its way, tucking in under its mother without a backwards glance. "If you want a dinosaur for a pet, I'll get you a Magyarosaurus. They're just about small enough to fit in your house."

Clara glanced back at him, before reluctantly stepping inside the TARDIS again.

"Victorian London, or cretaceous Hungary?" the Doctor asked, back at the console.

"I'd have a hard time explaining a six metre sauropod, so let's go for London." She replied.

"You sure?"

"London." She repeated, before the Doctor pulled the lever to transport them.

While the TARDIS was making the journey from the thirty-sixth century to the nineteenth, Clara busied herself changing.

The massive wardrobe room belonging to the TARDIS was always an interesting place to visit, especially when you needed to dress for an occasion in which modern clothing would most definitely be out of place, and would lead to complications involving stakes and accusations of witchcraft.

She crossed to the console that controlled the massive clothing racks, before entering her requirements; 'Victorian servant’s uniform, 1890's, and appropriate undergarments.' The clothing rack whirred and clanked for a few moments, before a set of clothes arrived on the conveyor belt that transported the machine's output.

The garments that the machine had chosen were a long sleeved white collared shirt, with a row of simple buttons along the front, a sea green woollen tunic, designed to go over the shirt, along with a plain black dress, made from a surprisingly smooth fabric. There was also a supply of undergarments, made from large amounts of fabric, but comfortable enough to wear. There was also a pair of simple ankle boots, with wooden soles.

Unbidden, the machine had also provided her with a carpetbag, containing several changes of clothes, along with a small bag, which contained, when examined, fifteen shillings, five thrupenny bits, and a small mound of pennies and ha'pennies.

The garments took several minutes to don, largely because of the sheer number of buttons, and the Victorian undergarments took even longer to initially attach, although they fitted perfectly, thanks to the TARDIS. The shirt fitted similarly well, providing ease of movement, comfort and the appropriate uniform in one single garment, with the tunic covering the buttons and providing warmth. The dress was made of heavy wool, and was surprisingly warm, although the fact that it came down below her ankles was disconcerting when she first practiced walking in it.

Once she was dressed, and has gathered up the carpetbag, she headed back through to the control room. Hearing the wooden footwear on the metal floor was more than slightly disconcerting, but ultimately she knew that it wasn't going to cause her any problems.

Inside the control room, the Doctor was busy at the console.

"Ahem." She said, before spinning around as he turned to face her.

"It looks good on you." He said. "Very servanty."

"Thanks." She replied. "I'm glad that you approve." Her tone wasn't going to etch metal, but it was more acidic than normal conversation.

"Keep away from brothels, don't drink too much, and stay on the right side of Vastra." He growled, unamused. "Watch out for serial killers, don't drink anything a client offers you, and never share anything Vastra has cooked for herself."

"Yes, dad." She chorused, smiling.

The time Lord spun to face the console, muttering something too quiet for her to hear.

A moment or so later, the TARDIS touched down cleanly, before she opened the door.

"Behave yourself." The Doctor told her, before she scampered out of the TARDIS.


	10. Chapter 10

When Clara opened the TARDIS doors, she was greeted by the conflicting smells of the late nineteenth century in a metropolis. It wasn't nearly as bad as it had been, according to the Doctor, in previous times, but, to her twenty-first century nose, it was still like being hit in the nostrils by a baseball bat, with horse-excrement competing with unfiltered smoke, factory pollution and a certain underlying miasma of raw sewage. Underfoot, she could feel the tell-tale straw and organic substances of the stable yard, and the hard, smooth cobbles below them, very distinct through the soles of the shoes she was wearing, which were effectively thin soled pumps with high ankles.

She'd looked a number of items out of the extremely extensive wardrobe provided by the TARDIS, and was wearing a simple white shirt, with a high collar, along with an ankle length black dress. Over the shirt, she was wearing a sleeveless woollen shirt, in sea green. She also had a stock of similar garments in a carpet bag slung over one shoulder.

About fifteen feet from where the TARDIS had appeared, there was an official looking coach parked in the stable-yard. The horse, an impressive looking animal, was wearing a nosebag, which only slightly reduced the effect, and far less than the uniformed coachman who was busy wiping off what looked like a quart of gin from the front of his uniform.

"Sorry." Clara called, before heading inside, wiping her feet conscientiously on the rear doormat before stepping off of it onto the carpet.

Inside, she was met by Strax.

"Can I take your coat?" The sontaran asked, offering a solicitous arm.

"I'm not wearing one." She replied, feeling a moment of Deja-vu.

"Are you wearing any garments that I may take?" he asked, shortly before having a cardigan draped over his head.

"There you go." She replied, smiling.

"Miss Clara, I really must protest." He responded, clearing the cardigan from the top of his head. "I'm Madame Vastra's butler, not a coat stand." The sontaran responded, indignantly, before she also handed him her bag.

"Could have fooled me." She retorted, before patting him on the head. "Where's Vastra?"

"Madame Vastra is in the drawing room. Would you like me to conduct you there?" The sontaran responded, specifically using her title.

"I think I can find it, thanks. Would it be OK if you took my bag up to my room?" Clara responded, with a mischievous smile. "Jenny has shown you how to make tea, right?"

"I have been following her instructions on the matter, Miss Clara. And Yes, I will transport your bag to your assigned quarters."

"Excellent. If you could bring some tea through in a few minutes…"

"I will do as you ask." Strax declared, before marching off in the direction of the kitchens.

Making a circling gesture with her index finger, Clara went in search of Vastra.

* * *

"As you are no doubt aware, 'Madame'," The leading politician said, dropping the quotes neatly into place around her adopted title. "The loss of these plans is a great threat to the security of the kingdom."

The man had spent the previous half hour lecturing her about the theft of plans for an experimental underwater boat, which, for some entirely unknown reason, at least outside of the home office, had been codenamed "Artful Dodger." Apparently, if they were sold overseas, it would be a dire threat to national security, along with the effectiveness of the royal navy.

Vastra wasn't convinced.

"Admiral, if what you say is true, this vessel would have to be able to travel at sixteen knots while submerged, and release a mine undetected by its prey, before retiring a considerable distance to avoid being destroyed by its own mine. The torpedoes you intend to arm it with, which you call a revolutionary weapon, require the submarine to nearly surface, within a few hundred yards of its intended prey, which then has to remain within that radius and on the same course for nearly a full minute, during which time it must fail to spot the highly visible trail of bubbles from the engine approaching it. Overall, sir, I fail to see how it is a weapon against anything other than a merchant vessel, such as a slow steamer, and even then, an alert lookout would be all that was needed to prevent damage."

The Silurian was seriously considering murder, simply because of the annoying single minded insistence that this was the most serious problem in the universe, when there was a knock on the drawing room door that connected to the kitchen, followed by it swinging open.

"I hope I'm not interrupting." Vastra heard the newcomer say. "I was sent here by Mr Strax to see if anyone wanted any refreshments?"

Turning around, she was surprised to see Clara in an appropriate uniform, with a simple white shirt overlaid by a sea-green vest, and with a simple, clean black skirt underneath it, with just a hint of sensible, plain black pumps underneath, with no heel to speak of. Admittedly, there was something else, but she knew that raising it in front of company would lead to complaints.

"The agency sent me to take over for Miss Flint while she is indisposed," Clara explained, taking care to avoid using any provocative phrases like imprisoned. "I've been reading through her notes on the household, and I hope I can do as good a job as she does."

"Ah, excellent." The Whitehall worthy exclaimed. "I could use a stiff brandy. I'm sure that the drinks cabinet can be relied on for such."

"I'll see what I can find, sir." She replied, before curtsying and heading out of the room, hoping she'd derailed any plans to commit bureaucraticide.

The kitchen, fortunately, was organised, replete with copper pots and pans, all highly polished, and so she was easily able to find the kettle, hanging on a rack next to the stove, along with several other similar vessels.

Once she'd found the kettle, and filled it with water, before placing on the hotplate of the aga, she turned to tracking down the tea, which, as it turned out, lived in a small labelled drawer in a wall cabinet next to the counter, along with dozens of assorted herbs and spices, along with the condiments, and set it to brew on the aga, before ducking into a room immediately next to the kitchen, which seemed little used.

Inside, sure enough, there was a stock of spirits and other intoxicating beverages, particularly wine. Looking over the extensive wine rack, she counted eighteen different vintages, and more than twenty vineyards. The stock of spirits leant heavily towards 'medicinal' drinks; whiskey and brandy, although there were also bottles of port, and what might have been sherry. All of the bottles were coated in a fine layer of dust.

She selected a whiskey from the shelf by the simple measure of selecting an already opened bottle, and extracting it. After a few minutes of rummaging in the kitchen cupboards, she located an appropriate glass to serve it with. By that time, the water had boiled on the stove, and she put the leaves in the pot, before adding the boiling water, in order to begin the brewing process.

Thanks to the layout of the kitchen, she was instantly able to locate a copper tea tray, that, she guessed, was probably worth more in the 21st century than a diamond ring. Regardless, she placed a tea-towel onto the elegantly engraved tray, before loading it up with the glass of whiskey, two cups and saucers, a half-opened packet of rich tea biscuits, the teapot, and, simply to ensure eventual departure, the bottle of whiskey.

It wasn't an easy carry, even for a teacher experienced in transporting multiple folders down a corridor full of students, but she managed to return to the drawing room, and place the tray on a small serving table, before pouring a cup of tea for Vastra, and passing the Admiral his drink. She then stood behind the table, seeming to almost disappear, as far as the Admiral was concerned.

"So, 'Madame,"' he asked, putting the Madame into a french accent. "Are you intended in taking the case?"

"My fee will be paid?"

"We have some discretionary funding that we can use to pay you." He replied. "Your rate is £3 10s an hour, am I correct?"

"Given that you wish me to put aside a number of other cases, including several that are near to fruition, in order to focus on yours, you will be paying my premium rate." She replied, calmly. "There will also be a surcharge for the essentially uninteresting nature of this case."

"How much do you want?" He muttered, reaching to the side-board for a second cup of whiskey.

"£5 per hour. You will receive a full invoice with your plans."

"I could hire a dozen other detectives for that sort of money." He burst out, taking a hasty gulp of his whiskey."

"You could. However, I think it unlikely that you would see your plans again if you hired any of those bunglers." She declared, dismissively. "They're perfectly good for finding out who else your wife is sleeping with, which is a question I think you should be asking, judging by your boots, or for following foreign diplomats around, but I am far more subtle when it comes to locating documents such as these." before finishing with; "Clara, more tea." holding out her empty bone china cup imperiously.

Clara poured the tea, resisting with difficulty the urge to slap the silurian's hand for the somewhat imperious nature of her statement, before realizing how invisible it made her to a Victorian aristocrat.

"I still say it is an extortionate rate, 'Madame'." He argued, visibly red in the face.

"It is the rate you will be paying, unless you know another detective who might be able to locate your documents, and I doubt that charlatan in baker street will be able to help you either."

"Mr Watson was highly recommended to me by several members of my club." He stated, hotly.

"He is a fraud, who works using music hall magic tricks and overweening pride. Mr Brown should not have sacked the butler after his wife's jewellery box disappeared. It was her maid." She declared.

"How did you..." He began.

"I read the papers." She replied, calmly. "I know who is selling what to which pawnbrokers, and I often know where it came from."

"How soon will you have me my papers back?" He asked.

"I would expect to return them within the week." She replied, before turning to Clara. "Jen... Clara, go to the back of the mews in Oxford circus, and ask for Muggins. Tell him I want to know about anyone visiting several embassies, particularly if he is carrying a satchel, and spends an extended period inside each."

"Yes, ma'am." Clara replied, with a curtsy. "Do you want me to summon Mr Strax to see the gentleman out?" She asked.

"I think that would be a wise course." Vastra replied. "I wouldn't want my reputation to suffer."

Quickly, Clara moved over to the bell pull in one corner of the room.

Within a few seconds, Strax appeared.

"Strax, would you be so kind as to conduct the gentleman to his carriage?" Vastra asked.

"If you'd like to follow me, sir?" The sontaran said, before the Admiral stood up, bowed to Vastra, before departing.

"Ma'am…?" Clara asked, once the man was on his way.

"Go along Newgate Street, and simply follow it towards Hyde Park." Vastra said. "Stay on the pavement where you can, and keep an eye out for carriages."

"Follow Newgate Street towards Hyde Park, and ask for Muggins at the Mews when I get there." She repeated.

"Excellent." I'll hope to see you back here at five." Vastra said, before shooing her temporary servant out of the door, taking a moment simply to look over her figure, comparing it in her mind to Jenny's. Her gaze lingered on Clara's rear end, and she momentarily imagined what it would feel like under her hands.

Then the door swung shut behind Clara, and she turned to the more important business of deduction.


	11. Chapter 11

Walking through the streets of Victorian London wasn't a new experience for Clara. In some ways, it wasn't to dissimilar to walking through the London of the 21st century, although the streets were quite different in other ways, such as the prevalence of painted advertisements, the clatter of iron rims and shod hooves on the cobbled streets, and the sight of horse drawn hansom cab had seemed slightly thrilling at first, before she realised that road deaths had not increased, but had decreased, with the introduction of the horseless carriage, as extremely early cars had been known.

She was also surprised by the prevalence of the attitude that in the 20th century had been known as the white van man among those driving medium sized delivery vehicles, shortly after she dodged by inches a brewer's dray that seemed to think the kerb was level with the wall of the building nearest the road.

"Watch where you're going, you blind idiot!" She yelled after the dray, resisting the urge to pepper the sentence with four lettered Anglo-Saxon terms which might have somewhat disconcerted the London citizenry.

After that incident, she took extreme care when approaching any junction.

As she continued through London, Clara became aware of another group that was almost absent from the streets of modern London: the street merchant.

Although she was familiar with the big issue seller, and similar persons of their ilk, essentially inoffensive and polite, not to mention passively selling their products, the street traders she was walking past were considerably more aggressive, seeming to ignore the fact she was dressed as a servant, and offering goods ranging from the useless (snuffboxes that contained opium), to goods she had no reason to purchase on the streets, such as cooking equipment or foodstuffs. Admittedly, she did purchase a box of matches from a match-seller's tray, but that was because she actually needed them.

When she reached Oxford circus, it was a place both achingly familiar and shockingly different. Instead of the routemasters she still visualized London buses as, there were horse drawn omnibuses, painted in the same red and gold livery she was familiar with, and open topped. Around the edges of the square, she could see a few pairs of policemen, wearing the familiar domed helmet, and resplendent in their comparatively eye-catching blue uniforms with rows of silver buttons, and with eighteen inch truncheons hanging on leather straps from their belts, along with a pair of Darby handcuffs.

In this version of London, she knew that as she was dressed as a servant, she was relatively secure from the attentions of the gangs of child pickpockets who would inevitably would be swarming in such a heavily trafficked area, although she kept both hands firmly in her pockets as she crossed towards a pair of police officers.

"Afternoon." She greeted them, knowing that being rude to a police officer in this era was an excellent way to be arrested for obstructing a constable about his duties.

"Afternoon, miss." One of them replied, while the other stepped to one side, allowing him to continue scanning the crowd behind her.

"Could you point me in the direction of the mews, officer?" She asked.

"Just through that gate." The spokesman replied. "Anyone you're looking for?"

"Not really." She replied. "My mistress sent me to enquire about hiring a second carriage for an event in three days’ time."

"Where do you work?" He asked, seemingly curiously.

"I'm a relief maid currently employed at 13 Paternoster row."

"There was some bad business there two nights back." The officer replied. "Madame Vastra's personal maid punched someone, I heard. It was in the Times."

"I wouldn't know, sir." She said. "All I know is that I was sent to the house as a replacement maid."

"I'm sure you'll be kept busy." The officer grinned. "Madame Vastra seems to get an awful lot of callers at all times of day and night."

"That's useful to know." She said. "I'll make sure to keep my keys handy." She made a show of producing a svelte pocket watch. "Madame said she needed me back in an hour." She explained, before heading into the stables.

To one side, she could see a number of curious heads protruding from their stables, along with a group of men who seemed extremely busy, although seemingly doing very little.

"There's a shilling for anyone who knows where I can find a lad called Muggins." She said, producing the small silver coin.

One of the grooms lent away from what looked like a game of cards.

"Around the corner, with a few of his mates." He replied, before deftly catching the coin when Clara tossed it to him. "Ta, Luv."

When she turned the corner, Clara was stuck by the similarity between the group she'd left behind and the group in front of her. The group of boys, generally younger than twelve, were gathered around an impromptu card table, playing for what looked like bent nails out of horseshoes, using a hand drawn deck.

"Muggins?" She asked, before, predictably, the most disreputable looking member of the group stood up. He was wearing what looked like a top hat, along with a wooden cap underneath, and an overcoat with the sleeves cut off at the original elbow.

"Ya?" He said.

"Madame Vastra says that she would be interested in anyone strange who has been going in and out of several buildings on embassy row, most likely with a satchel. She would appreciate a description and a simple sketch if possible. She also says that the rate is a shilling a day, with a guinea for the lad who finds the man we're after."

"Do'ya kno' 'ho ya're lookin' fore?" The lad asked, in a semi-indecipherable accent, even to a teacher who'd had to grade essays in frankly atrocious English.

"We don't. Also, if anyone saw a man coming out of the Admiralty House after hours two nights ago with a satchel, we'd like to speak to him as well."

"Gotcha." He replied. "Anywun comin' out an embassy wiv a bag'a papers and goin' along t' row, and anywun coming outa Admiralty House after hours two nights back."

"I'm authorized to pay the first day in advance." She said, before handing over eight shillings. "Anyone else should be in the coach yard at the Row tomorrow to get paid."

"Aye aye." The lad replied, before turning to give orders in an almost incomprehensible language, quickly sending various street Arabs sprinting off in various directions.

Grinning at the sheer eagerness of the paternoster irregulars, Clara turned and headed back to the stable yard, where a coach was being harnessed.

"Which way?" She called.

"Down past Saint Paul's." The man harnessing it replied. "We're picking up the earl of Southsea from the station."

"Mind if I hitch a lift?" She asked, before a gesture indicated that she should clamber onto the bench next to the driver. "Sure thing." He replied, as she clambered up next to him, before taking a firm grip on the handrail.

The next few minutes were surprisingly restful, with little in the way of swearing, either from her travelling companion, or from other drivers.

"Where do you work?" He asked, once they were trotting along the main road.

"Paternoster row." She replied.

"Aye?" He said, smiling. "How's Jenny getting along these days?" He asked, smiling.

"She's in prison, apparently. She smacked a lordling at a house party of Madame's, and she ended up in front of the beak. He gave her a week to think things over behind bars."

"Tis a shame." He replied. "She's a nice enough lass."

"So I hear. Hard working, conscientious, and apparently the main support for Madame."

"Can you drop me by the corner?" She asked, as the coach clattered over the cobbles in front of Newgate.

"You don't want me to drop you by the door?" He asked.

"I'll be fine." She replied, before slipping him a shilling.

"You didn't need to do that, miss." He protested.

"Buy yourself a drink with it." She suggested. "I'm not paying you, in that regard."

"Thankee kindly." He responded, with a wink, before drawing the carriage to a half briefly so she could alight.

"See you." He said, before urging the horses into a trot again, as Clara strolled back to paternoster row.


	12. Chapter 12

Jenny was jerked from a none-too-sound sleep on the unpadded slab of wood that served her as a mattress by a sudden pounding on the door.

"Get up. Church Parade!" A warder yelled through the door.

Still shaking the sleep from her mind, she stiffly turned over, before her body protested in agony, nearly dropping her to the floor with savage cramps in dozens of muscles the length of the body.

She couldn't help screaming in sudden pain, and a sudden burst of terror.

To her surprise, the hatch swung open.

"Are you lazy or something?" The warder demanded. "If you're not out of there in the next minute, I'll come and drag you out by the hair."

Frustrated, she forced her body to its feet, staggering slightly as she was forced to adjust for the irons fastened around her ankles.

"Move it." The man hissed, before pushing her in the direction of the main room in the women's wing of the prison, which she hadn't visited before.

Throughout the building, she could see dozens of prisoners making their way towards the room, and hear the banging of doors and hatches as the remainder were chivvied in the direction of the hall.

Inside, there was a space about the size of the main concourse of one of the smaller London stations, mostly filled with benches and tables, crudely constructed out of heavy planks of oak and held together by gravity and friction. At one end of the room, there was a space, empty except for a large group of people, her fellow prisoners, being formed into rough ranks by several warders, occasionally using their batons on prisoners apparently as a corrective measure, rather than the casual brutality Jenny read from their stances.

Reluctantly, she fell in; keeping her eyes straight ahead, except for a brief check on the prisoners either side of her to ensure that she wouldn't be attracting any attention from the prowling thugs.

It took ten minutes before the guards were happy, and had marched all of the prisoners into the room. Then one of the men knocked on a heavy wooden door, on top of a stage, with a small lectern.

A few moments later, a man bustled through the door, carrying a bible under his arm, along with several folded sheets of paper. His face was swarthy, with a narrow, beaked nose, and eyes that brought her in mind of the sort of men who hired the services of girls barely old enough to consent, before subjecting them to acts that would outrage even a pimp. She and Vastra had… she put the set of memories firmly back in their box, refusing to even think about what they'd found.

"Today's reading," He announced in the voice of the orator only tolerated because those he speaks to have no choice, "Will be from the book of Exodus, chapter twenty, verses thirteen to seventeen."

"Orf Hats!" The leading warder yelled, the response being the immediate removal of all items of headgear.

"Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shall not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shall not covet thy neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is thy neighbours." The priest finally paused for a moment, before continuing. "These are the words of the Lord, to his chosen people, gifted to his chosen prophet, the blessed Moses. These are words that many of you have breached. You have all sinned in the eyes of the Lord. All mankind are sinners, in His merciful eyes. Each of us carries a portion of the original sin upon our souls from the moment of our birth. It is our duty to repay the Lord for this, by acting kindly towards our fellow man. Many of you have treated your fellow man with violence, or treated his good thus. The Lord knows that all men sin, but he requires that we work to redeem ourselves." He stopped speaking for a moment.

And what are your sins? Jenny wondered. That you allow your lusts to control your actions? That you treat young girls in a way that would sicken your bishop? That you willingly pay for carnal interactions? You are more of a criminal than anyone in this hall, but you stand in front of us, preaching about sin? How dare you! She didn't speak aloud any of her thoughts, and tried to keep them out of her posture.

"Despite our sins, the Lord loves all of us, as does any father. He only holds anger against those who harm their fellow children, in malice. Show him by your actions that you are remorseful, and he will grant you forgiveness. Work hard, and treat those placed over you with courtesy and respect." He paused again. "I will now read the Lord's prayer."

"Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen." He read; followed a moment later by a chorus of voices from the prisoners, who echoed the priest with little enthusiasm.

"Be seated." He announced, sending the prisoners filing onto their benches, each place set with a simple wooden bowl and a crude wooden spoon, deeply dished, and worn from long use. Once all of the prisoners were seated, a pair of guards went along each bench, using a small trolley, with a cauldron set into its surface, to serve each prisoner their porridge. Jenny held back from eating when she saw none of her fellow prisoner touch their spoons.

"Before we eat, we will say the grace." The priest announced, pompously. "May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and evermore. Amen." Once the echoes of the unenthusiastic prayer had died away, and the ecclesiast had left the room, they began eating in silence.

The porridge was of a marginally better quality than her breakfast the previous morning, and appeared to have been made with oats freshly produced, rather than the week old, rat dropping infested sludge she'd been handed the previous day. Admittedly, the oats were ground far more finely than she would have accepted in the kitchen of Paternoster Row, and it appeared to have been made with water, rather than milk, but it tasted surprisingly good, for all that. She briefly raised her head from a servile, unthreatening bowed position, before glancing around.

Two along, other side; child robbing for gin money. Five down, my side; poisoning her husband, non-fatally. One across, fifth seat; robbery with violence. Next to her, assault with a bladed article, put three policemen in the Royal Free Hospital.

Overall, she decided, the company wasn't exactly worth considering.

Once they'd eaten, the warders came around and collected all of the bowls and spoons, carefully counting them, before leaving the prisoners briefly to their own devices. Most just sat there, their heads bowed, and waited to be taken to their daily tasks.

Once again, Jenny was led into the long, hot room that held the treadmill. A handful of other prisoners were already turning the wheel, and she was briefly instructed to mount the wheel by a warder, idly smoking his pipe, a loaded shotgun across his knees, before a second warder, armed with a revolver, entered her name and the time she started onto a chart painted onto a chalkboard behind the desk where the two men sat, before starting what appeared to be a stopwatch once she was underway.

She was left marching around the wheel for ten minutes, before being allowed to dismount for a five minute break, again, timed. Then she was put back onto the wheel, again for ten minutes, and the routine was continued another thirty-nine times, until she was totally exhausted. During what she thought had been her twentieth break, although she wasn't sure about any of the timings, she had been given a bowl of cold stew, containing a mixture of simple root vegetables and some form of meat product, although which meat wasn't something she was particularly tempted to enquire about.

Barely able to stand, she was led back through a maze of cells to the small, dank room in which she was to spend the night, and more or less pushed through the door, which was then slammed shut behind her, before she heard the click of the lock sealing her inside for the night.

She huddled on the wooden slab that passed for a bed, pulling a thin cotton rag over her body to try and retain what warmth she could, too exhausted to even turn on her Gameboy. She was asleep within minutes.

What seemed to her a few short moments later, she was jerked awake by a sudden, very distinctive noise, one that she'd heard several times before. Wearily, she lifted her head, before extracting her Gameboy from its case, and turning it one.

The light from the screen revealed a familiar oblong, seconds before she was pounced on.


	13. Chapter 13

It took several moments of rummaging in her pockets for Clara to locate the large key to the front door of Thirteen Paternoster Row, most of which was spent playing 'is it in here? How about here?' before she finally located the key, and opened the front door, large by the standards she was used to.

Once she'd gratefully closed the door, resulting in at least a slight freshening of the air, she began to be able to hear the sounds of someone rhythmically assaulting a large sack of straw with some form of weapon, intermittently followed by a martial sounding haiha or similar noise.

Out of curiosity, she tracked the noise down the hall, and into the kitchen, before localizing it to the cellar steps. Holding onto the guardrail, she descended into the room, to be met by several interesting sights.

On one wall, half concealed behind a wine rack, there was a rack of what looked like relatively modern assault rifles, with the overall design characteristics of a Kalashnikov series weapon, including the banana shaped magazine. Next to them, on a different rack, were sheathed swords, what looked like three full sets from tanto to no-dachi, offering a wide variety of options for turning most problems into several far smaller ones. Below the business weapons, there was a separate rack loaded with bokken, as she vaguely remembered wooden Japanese training weapons to be called. In a separate rack from both swords and rifles, she spotted three weapons made by placing a katana blade on top of a six foot pole, with leather covers protecting the blades.

Vastra was busy killing a large man made out of straw with what looked like the fire poker.

"Oi." Clara said, activating her schoolteacher tone. "Miss Vastra, put that poker down this instant."

She was only mildly surprised when Vastra seemed to react without thought, placing the poker on a small table, before stepping back.

"Clara." She greeted the human. "Are the irregulars loose?"

"Yes, I've turned out the irregulars, and I've paid them up front." Clara replied. "Why were you using a poker to beat up a training dummy?" She asked.

To her surprise, Vastra shuffled her feet briefly before replying. "Jenny never lets me use the poker when she's around. I wanted to see what it is about it that makes it such a popular weapon."

Clara couldn't help rolling her eyes slightly. "It's simply a very available chunk of metal with a long handle." She replied. "No mystic energies, no other powers. Just a lump of metal, on a stick."

"I see." Vastra replied, before there was a sudden clatter in the street outside, as what sounded like a cab drew up outside the house, followed closely by a pair of boots hurrying up the steps to the front door, then a hammering on it.

"Clara, be a dear and get the door, will you?" Vastra instructed. "I'll be in my sitting room. Bring some tea with you, as well."

Clara snapped off a salute which could only be described as sarcastic, before hurrying to the doorway.

Once she'd negotiated the chain, which she couldn't remember fastening herself, she pulled the door open, revealing the figure of a suspicious looking man beyond.

The man wasn't as tall as the doctor, and had a small frame, even by Victorian standards. He had a narrow face, with dark, narrow eyes, and an unhealthy looking sallow complexion. He was smartly dressed, with a bowler, although his clothes showed signs of what looked like mud and dirt, and his bowler was somewhat battered, although by no means disreputable.

"Is Madame Vastra at home? He asked, with a slightly musical accent that put her in mind of a more guttural version of a south wales accent. "We've got something that I think will pique her interest."

"And who shall I say is calling?" She asked, before he handed her a card.

The card read: 'Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, Scotland Yard CID.'

"I think she is, sir." She replied, with a curtesy, before using the detective inside. "May I conduct you to the drawing room?"

"Certainly, miss…?"

"Oswald, sir."

"Lead the way, Miss Oswald." He said, with a slight smile, which broadened as she borrowed his bowler, before placing it on the coat stand.

"Coats and hats at the door, please." She said, before taking his coat and hanging it up as well.

"Usually, Miss Oswald, Jenny leaves that to Mr Strax." Lestrade said with a wink, before following her to the drawing room, reading his notebook.

Once she reached the drawing room, Clara darted back to the kitchen for the tea-tray, knowing that even Vastra couldn't evade the preliminary niceties of Victorian society, such as discussing the weather, mutual acquaintances, and presumably, previous cases. Unlike a recent version of Sherlock Holmes she'd seen, Vastra wasn't a rude being, although, to be fair, the character of Holmes wasn't rude, just unconcerned with social niceties.

Quickly, she extracted a pot-full of boiling water from the stove, having left a large urn on in anticipation of large amounts of tea being required. Into it, she dropped three teaspoons worth of loose tea-leaves, before placing the lid back on the teapot, then gathering a jug of milk, holding about a pint, before loading three cups onto a tea-tray, along with saucers, a small packet of rich tea biscuits, and the highly vital silver teaspoons. She placed the teapot on the tray, before carefully balancing it and walking through to the drawing room.

The door was closed when she approached, so she, after considering the options, decided to resort to kicking the door several times, at which point the inspector opened the door with a polite nod.

"Madame insisted we wait for the tea before we get down to details." He said, before extracting a small leather bag, akin to a glasses case, then removing a relatively small clay pipe, almost black from long use, and pinching a handful of tobacco into it, before adding a match produced from a plain matchbook, and quickly producing a fug of smoke that would make any 21st century smoke alarm explode in sheer fury.

"Inspector, do you have to smoke that thing in here?" Vastra asked. "Clara, darling, would you get the window?"

Bending low, Clara quickly poured a cup for Vastra, putting the milk in first, then moving to the sash window, and quickly opening it, before standing back, in an at-ease pose, and allowing the meeting to progress.

"We've got an unusual one." Lestrade said, flicking open his notebook. "Last night, we had a report of a young man going missing near the Admiralty, one of the clerks there, going by the name of Arthur West. He and his fiancée were returning from the theatre, having viewed Mr Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' when Mr West, upon passing his workplace, suddenly took off, after passing a man in the fog, with an instruction that if he did not return within ten minutes, his fiancée, a Miss Parker, should make her way in haste to the station at Charing Cross, and request the assistance of a constable. Upon her arrival at the front desk, she was near to hysterics, and it took three cups of tea to calm her down, and that was when we got the story. My colleague Inspector Hackett was on the night shift, and turned out, with a number of his constables and two sergeants to scour the area, although they found no-one. We photo-telegraphed his description and photograph to all of the stations in London this morning, before I was summoned to a report of a man being thrown from an underground carriage at Westminster bridge road. One of the porters saw him suddenly appear from the rear of the train just as it left the station, and sent a runner to Kennington police station, from whence a constable was dispatched, and the line was halted to allow recovery of the body. Once the constable had retrieved the body, which had a very severe head injury, he searched the pockets, finding no sign of a robbery. The man's pockets contained cards and a theatre ticket stub, both in the name of Mr Arthur West. At that point, I was summoned via telegraph, and, after examining the body, I came straight here."

"I see." Vastra said, after a moment. "Why didn't you have the train stopped at the next station, and searched?"

"By the time we were alerted, it had already passed, and stopped at, Waterloo station. We've got a sergeant and two constables interviewing the staff, but frankly we're not hopeful."

"Have you got the train?" Vastra asked?

"We managed to have it stopped at Bond Street, and diverted into a siding, due to a damaged brake, and we paid for onwards journeys out of our sundries budget. We've already been through it, and there was precious little to see, but we want you to have a look before we release it, just in case you can find any clues that we've missed."

"Very well, Inspector." Vastra said, picking up her tea and taking a not so delicate sip. "I'll accompany you presently. Clara, would you go down to the telegraph office, next to St Pauls, and send our visitor from this morning a telegram asking for details of any staff assigned to his project?"

"Certainly, Ma'am." Clara said, before Vastra handed her a card.

"Here are his details." She said, before finishing her tea, and heading for the door.


	14. Chapter 14

Clara hurried up the road, having spotted the telegraph office earlier, before darting inside.

Inside, there were several workmen writing on pads, along with a better-off client, judging by his coat and hat, who was directly dictating his longer message to a harassed looking clerk.

"Look, I said 'Aldengate council meeting on the fifth of March, stop. You are hereby requested to attend by the chairman, stop. We will be discussing your proposal, stop.' You've persistently mis-copied my statements."

"Excuse me, sir." Clara asked. "Why don't you write it down yourself?"

"Excuse me?" He gobbled. "Who are you to ask such a question as that?"

"I'm the person behind you in the queue." She replied, politely.

"And I'm the leader of Aldengate borough council." He replied.

"Who are you sending your message to?" She replied, in an extremely dangerously meek tone of voice, as if overawed by the personage she was addressing.

"I'm sending an important message to Sir John Edwards, about an excellent proposal for a modern workhouse in the borough."

In response, she dipped into a pocket, and simply produced a small square of cardboard.

It read ' Admiral the Lord Camperdown, Admiralty House, London."

"I, ah. I apologise." He said, suddenly realising exactly how much power he was potentially crossing.

"Don't worry about it." She replied, with a flick of her head towards the pads.

He took the hint, and moved across.

"Thanks." The clerk whispered. "He thinks being a senior council official makes him a big-shot, and he has just enough actual influence to make himself a nuisance."

"I guessed." Clara said with a wink. "I need you to send an urgent message to the Admiralty."

"Certainly, miss...?"

"Oswald. Clara Oswald." She replied, grinning slightly at one of the things most people wanted to say in the 21st century.

"Message to read: Attention of Admiral the Lord Camperdown. Was Arthur West employed on the matter upon which you consulted with M. Vastra today?"

"How urgent?" The clerk asked.

"If you can get it on his desk within five minutes, it'd be worth half a guinea to you, and half a guinea to the messenger boy."

"Aye aye." The man said, before turning to the back of the shop, and rapidly tapping out the message in Morse code.

A perhaps three minutes later, the tickertape machine in the corner of the office suddenly sprang into life.

"A.W. employed on A.D. News?"

"Send back; 'A.W. found on underground, deceased.'" Clara instructed, before leaving two half crowns and three shillings in payment. "Send a further telegram to X police station: "A.W. employed on A.D. confirmed." Clara smiled. "Hopefully, you can arrange prompt delivery." She said, before politely nodding, and exiting the shop.

* * *

Any journey through central London was a minor penance for Vastra. The sheer variety and number of smells, most of them disgusting to anyone with a working nose, never mind one as sensitive as hers. For Vastra, a ride in an open cab was like being repeatedly hit in the mouth and nose with a club, only less pleasant. She could smell old pools of vomit a week old, along with traces of blood from dozens of fights, as the cab rapidly trotted through the streets to reach the Thames. At that point, smells such as tar and hemp became present, along with other aromas, such as raw sewage, the occasional rotting corpse, and a certain amount of rotting fish. There was also a smell of seaweed.

It didn't take the cab long to arrive at New Scotland Yard, once it had reached the Thames. The building was one of the most modern in government use, having been built specifically by and for the use of the metropolitan police service, and included a state of the art morgue, complete with a working refrigerator for the storage of bodies recovered from crime scenes and awaiting a post-mortem.

The officer on the door recognised Vastra, and saluted, receiving a nod in return. Inside, Lestrade led the way straight to the morgue, both his workmanlike patent leather boots, which were both glossy and able to withstand kicking down a door, and Vastra's high heeled boots, rattling on the wooden floors, and trailing salutes from various officers.

When they reached the morgue, Vastra was more than slightly surprised by the temperature, which wasn't much below room temperature in the rest of the building. She stood well away from the fridge as the door was opened, as refrigeration and ectotherms do not mix, and the last thing she wanted to door was collapse from the cold, particularly since she hadn't had access to her human hot-water bottle for two nights in a row.

"Arthur West, aged twenty-four." Lestrade said, filling in for the pathologist, who had had a falling out with Vastra over 'perks', which she had not approved of, leading them to avoid one another. "Cause of death; massive blow to the head. Everything in his pockets is on the table over there."

Carefully, Vastra examined the body, carefully examining the head injury, which had crushed the frontal cortex, presumably sending shards of bone deep into the brain. It appeared to have been delivered by a weapon no more than five inches in diameter.

"His clothes are in disarray." Lestrade observed, as she moved her careful examination down the body. "There must have been a struggle."

"There is what looks like clay on the sole of his right boot." Vastra observed.

"Any use?" Lestrade asked.

"It narrows down the area he boarded the train." Vastra replied. "He must have boarded it at elephant and castle."

"How do you…"

"That is the only area south of the Thames where he could have both picked up that soil and boarded that service, prior to Westminster Bridge Road, where he was thrown from the train." Vastra said, in a matter of fact tone.

"You think we should focus our enquiries in the area?"

"No." Vastra replied. "I think you should focus them at Whitehall. See if there was anyone who had had cross words with the young man, or had been involved in a dispute with him. Check his private life. Were there any rivals for Miss Parker? Was he in debt, and if so to who?"

After issuing those instructions, or at least suggestions that might have sounded like instructions, Vastra moved over to the contents of the man's pockets.

The first thing she picked up was his watch, a silver cased hunter. The glass was smashed when she opened it, and the hands had stopped at 23:10.

"What time did he fall from the carriage?" She asked.

"About half past eight this morning. I wasn't on the scene until ten." Lestrade explained.

"Then either he took a fall the previous night, in the fog, and damaged it then, or he was killed earlier."

"Madame, I know the people on the tube well enough to know that there is no way a body could remain undiscovered in a carriage for more than a short time."

"I can think of one." Vastra replied.

"Wh… Of course." Lestrade replied.

"Check with anyone using the train this morning. Did they see a policeman exiting the end carriage at Waterloo?"

"Aye aye." Lestrade said, before Vastra began checking the other items, before finding a sheaf of papers.

"What do we…? She mused, before recognising the lettering on them.

"Lestrade, I'm going to need you to leave the room." She said, doing her best to smile apologetically at the detective.

"Two minutes, Vastra." He said. "I can justify leaving you alone with the body for that long."

"That'll be all I need." She replied.

Once the detective had left the room, she went through the papers rapidly. Several pages were missing, but the rest were all from the Admiralty and depicted the plans for the submarine codenamed Artful Dodger. Quickly, she swapped them with a pile of bills from a restaurant near his lodgings, admittedly that she'd been the actual benefactor from, and pocketed the actual papers before the Inspector returned.

"I've seen all I need to." She said. I want to see the carriage, now."

Fortunately, Vastra wasn't forced to use the cab again, Lestrade having access to an official, not to mention enclosed, carriage that was used to transport senior officials to and from crime scenes.

The carriage, by the time Vastra arrived, had been backed into an open siding, and several arc lamps had been set up to illuminate the scene, with the able assistance of the winter sun.

"Clear all of your officers out the carriage." Vastra instructed Lestrade, made somewhat more waspish than usual by the combination of cold weather and several days without proper food, given that Strax had never quite mastered the concept of cooking, requiring Vastra to subsist on unaccompanied meat alone, without any of the trimmings that Jenny never let her leave the table without eating.

To be honest, she'd started off disliking things such as roast potato, mint sauce, parsnips and gravy, seeing them as useless vegetation with no reason for her to eat them.

Then, eventually, Jenny had, well, cajoled her, into actually trying the various items that accompanied her meals, and the Silurian had been amazed at the flavours that rolled off of her taste buds and into her pleasure centres. She still preferred her meat raw, however, although Jenny was working on that as well, mostly using spices and herbs that only worked on cooked meat while cooking in order to tempt Vastra.

Once the area was clear, Vastra could very clearly smell blood, and considerable quantities of it. She carefully tracked it toward the carriage, before grimly clambering inside, knowing that another assault was in the offing.

Inside, there was a brutal wall of smells, including stale beer, vomit and blood, which she quickly tracked to a small splattering on the wall of the carriage. Carefully, she examined the other wall, the floor and the ceiling, searching with a magnifying glass coupled with Silurian vision for any other traces of blood. There were a few other stains, all old, and barely detectable without her eyes, even with her nose a few millimetres above the stains themselves, there was only the faintest aroma of blood.

She carefully backed into the centre of the carriage, before looking around for signs of a struggle, or anything else out of place. There were a few scuff marks, but nothing else in any way indicative of a violent killing.

So where was the blood I smelt outside coming from? Vastra wondered.

Carefully, she tracked the scent of blood through the carriage, all of the way to the open door.

"Inspector!" She called. "I require a ladder."

A few moments later, a ladder was produced from a small hut nearby, the door of which had been broken before the sergeant lent against it from five feet away.

Vastra didn't actually need the ladder, but clambering onto the roof of a carriage using her claws would have raised eyebrows, and that might have affected her retainer.

Once she had negotiated the stepladder, the roof flexed slightly as she stepped onto it, and the surface felt sticky underfoot, which keyboard roofing shouldn't have. The smell of blood was overwhelming as she looked down, to find a pool of human blood.

"Inspector!" She called. "Take a look at this."

A moment later, Lestrade nimbly clambered up the ladder, to be confronted with a massive pool of blood.

"How...?" He spluttered. "These carriages don't have a roof hatch."

"I haven't any idea, inspector." She replied.


	15. Chapter 15

Once she got back from the telegraph office, Clara began to feel somewhat hungry. The last meal she had had was a local equivalent of a McDonald’s meal, with chips and a medium sized burger. That had been about five hours previously, although she'd saved some of the chips for later, in the TARDIS equivalent of a doggy bag, which had also been used by the Doctor to transport various authentic Roman delicacies for her history class to try.

Inside the kitchen, she quickly located the pantry, which had been subdivided into two large cupboards and a smaller cupboard. The large cupboards were marked "Vastra" and "Jenny", while the small cupboard had "Strax" written on it. Clara decided very quickly that she didn't want to investigate what Vastra had in her cupboard, and opened Jenny's. Inside, there was a selection of breakfast cereals, along with several baskets of seasonal root vegetables, and a rack of cuts of meat.

Carefully, Clara extracted two cuts of meat, what would have been known as rump steaks on a restaurant menu, before placing them on a metal tray.

Once they were on the tray, she extracted a stock of potatoes from another part of the cupboard, before carefully peeling them, then slicing them into quarters and arranging them on the tray, along with whole carrots and parsnips, then drizzled the whole dish with a cooking oil, before sprinkling herbs and seasonings onto the oiled meat, finishing the dish with a thin coating of paprika.

Once the main dish was in the oven, Clara turned her attention to other matters. Having already found the wine and other alcohol store, she extracted a bottle of Italian red, stored in the 'meat' section of the rack by a previous occupant, and cracked it open, pouring a measure into a gravy boat. She added a small amount of chilli powder to the wine, before covering it well away from the stove.

It took three hours for the meat to cook, which Clara spent planning several lessons for her class, assuming she could get them to go anywhere near the blue box after last time.

About halfway through the cooking process, the sound of a carriage rattled through the yard, before Vastra entered the building via the kitchen door, before almost wrapping herself around the Aga as soon as the door was shut.

"Ma'am?" Clara asked. "Why are you doing that?"

There was no answer for about a minute.

"Ma'am?" Clara asked again, hearing what sounded suspiciously like purring noises coming from the vicinity of the stove.

"Sorry." Vastra said after another pregnant silence. "I needed that."

"Needed what?" Clara asked, slightly confused.

"When Jenny calls me a lizard, Clara, she isn't being inexact, from a biological perspective, at least. I can't generate my own body heat. Couple that with being outside today, and I need heat urgently." Vastra explained, still curled up against the Aga.

"I see." Clara replied. "I need to check on dinner." She explained, holding up a ladle. "If you want some additional heat, I'm sure that Strax will stoke the fire for you."

At that point, she more or less chased Vastra out of the kitchen, not holding the ladle in the overtly threatening fashion Jenny sometimes did, but simply holding a two pound copper ladle a foot long.

Once the meat had finished cooking, she carefully drained the juices from both meat and vegetables into the gravy boat, before raiding one of the other cupboards for drinking vessels, extracting a silver pint mug engraved "Vastra", along with a simple glass for herself.

Once she'd laid the table, using more silver tableware than she'd seen in one place outside of a museum display case, and placed a steak knife by each of the two plates, she called Vastra in from where the Silurian had been huddling next to a fire.

The initial result was surprising.

"Clara, why have you cooked mine?" Vastra asked, looking very unsure.

"Because it was the only way to ensure it tasted right." She replied, before adding; "cooked meat won't exactly kill you."

Clara sat down on the chair, a classic example of the Victorian carpenter's art, with silk upholstery and very comfortable padding. She didn't get too comfortable, though, and quickly had her ladle out.

"That's the gravy jug!" She said, watching the progress of the vessel. "It goes on the meat, not in your glass."

"It smells like a drink." Vastra explained, clearly having been civilized enough over several years living with Jenny to have mastered cutlery, as she wasn't actually struggling to eat with it.

"Drink comes out of the decanter or the bottle." Clara replied, passing over the bottle of red wine. "Not the gravy jug."

There was a hiss from the Silurian, followed by a menacing brandishing of the two pound copper ladle. "Behave." Clara said.

Reluctantly, or at least it seemed that way, Vastra accepted the wine, before pouring herself a generous measure.

"It was a gift from Jenny." She said, holding up the silver mug. "Our wedding was in the twenty-fifth century, as marriages between women are a very grey area with the local apes. We had to lie about my species even then, and claim I was from Elune. We then edited the wedding certificate, and put it in my safe. Wedding presents were off the menu, as we couldn't invite anyone, so we brought each other presents instead. Jenny chose the most powerfully meat scented paper for my presents, but we avoided egg poachers and toast racks, at least." The Silurian smiled slightly at the memory.

"I wish I'd been invited.” Clara replied, not in the slightest bit purely from politeness.

The meat, as it turned out, was done to perfection, with the various herbs and spices she'd sprinkled over it, following a recipe from a folded page in one of Jenny's larger cookbooks, setting off the meat perfectly. The wine tasted slightly of pitch, but otherwise the blend of fruits and berries set off the meat nicely. Vastra had received a somewhat larger portion of meat than Clara, and had quite happily dealt with the three pounds of steak, without earning a single blow from the ladle for table manners.

Unfortunately, she'd also had most of the wine, and several times had been whacked with the ladle for trying to drink from the bottle. There had been a tap each time she tried to pour the wine into her glass without offering any to Clara, which had avoided degeneration into an outright wrestling match over possession of the bottle only because of the presence of the table and crockery.

Once dinner was finished, Clara was surprised to see an actual bulge in Vastra's stomach, representing the final home of three pounds of rump steak, a pound of potatoes and half a pound of carrots and parsnips. Clara, in comparison, had had eight ounces of rump steak, and in total, a pound of vegetables, split nine ounces of potatoes and seven of carrots and parsnips. Vastra had also downed the best part of a bottle of wine, despite Clara's best efforts to have some as well, and had eventually managed to sneak a third of the gravy into her mug before being caught.

Finally, they adjourned for a final discussion of the case.

"Clara, what did you find out about the deceased?" Vastra asked.

"No gambling debts, only a social drinker, no known contacts within the embassy quarter, although several diplomats had approached him in his club with money for news." Clara reeled off. "His relationship with Miss Parker seems to have been monogamous, despite several approaches from other staff."

"What was his current project?" Vastra asked, already knowing the answer.

"Artful Dodger." Clara replied. "He was one of the draftsmen working on the design."

"Which would explain these." Vastra said, smoothing out a number of relatively simple diagrams for ballast chambers and the periscope, among other components.

"Where's the steering assemblage, or the torpedo tube mechanism?" Clara asked, after a moment.

Vastra flicked through the plans briefly, before hissing what sounded like several random syllables.

"I knew this was too easy." She said.

Then there was a polite knock on the door of the drawing room.

"Enter.” Vastra called, before Strax opened the door.

"The Doctor to see Madame Vastra and Miss Clara Oswald." Strax announced, carrying a frock coat over one arm.

"Doctor." Vastra said, with a smile. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Ah, I know." He replied, seemingly as grumpy as ever. "I've got tickets for a film I thought you two might be interested in, which is why I popped in." He replied, quickly cadging a biscuit from the plate on the tea-table.

"Which one?" Clara asked.

"They're calling it 'The empire strikes back', for now. I'm told the sword fighting sequences are worth watching." He said.

There was a muttering from Vastra. "Useless human rubbish and about as realistic as their customs." Vastra hissed, in what Clara realised was Silurian. Her aim with the ladle was precise.

The Silurian rubbed her nose for several seconds, before muttering something too quiet to hear, with a glance that Clara hoped she was misinterpreting.

"Anyway, are you two interested?" The Doctor asked.

"Yes." Clara replied.

"Only if I can take Jenny." Vastra said, seemingly sulking over the ladle throwing.

"I think we can arrange that." The Doctor replied, with a grin. "I've got us tickets to the premiere."

"How did you...?" Clara began, before he waggled a square of apparently blank paper at her.

"Shall we?" He asked, before leading the way to the TARDIS.

Once they were inside, and he'd shut the doors, the Doctor busied himself with the control panel.

"These short trips, I hate these. Why couldn't they have put her in Edinburgh, or Liverpool?" He grumbled, before pulling the lever.

The flight only lasted a few short seconds, before they touched down and the Doctor opened the door.

"Cell 273, Newgate prison." He announced, shortly before Vastra darted out through the door and pounced on a still groggy Jenny. There was a squeal as she landed.


	16. Chapter 16

As soon as she was out of the door, Vastra's nostrils had been filled by the scent of her wife. She hadn't been able to help herself, and had instinctively pounced on Jenny.

"Ma'am..." Jenny wheezed, from underneath the Silurian; "I need air."

Hesitantly, Vastra climbed off of her wife, before almost gently picking her up and just holding her, their lips brushing at first, before interlinking shortly afterwards.

"She'll need a shower before you can bring her in here." The Doctor stated, standing with his arms crossed in the doorway to the TARDIS.

"You've got a shower." Clara stated, fulfilling her usual role as the Doctor's morality pet. "Her cell hasn't."

"Don't be silly." He grumbled. "Every cell on a developed planet has a shower. It's usually written into some law."

"This one doesn't." Clara hissed. "Now, let her in."

"Fine." The Doctor replied. "But if she stinks up my bathroom, you're cleaning it out."

"If you say so." Clara replied, before pulling the Time Lord out of the doorway.

"Ahem." She said, using the same tone she had when ordering Vastra to behave earlier in the day. "We haven't got all day."

Reluctantly, the pair broke apart, before Vastra led the way into the TARDIS.

* * *

Jenny followed Clara through the TARDIS hallways, astonished at the size of the ship, even knowing from past experience how large it actually was. The other human seemed to know her way around the key areas of the ship, however, and within minutes they had arrived in the palatial bathroom. Bronze fittings and marble baths filled part of the room, along with a row of showers, each with an individual stained glass door, showing a major structure or city from Gallifrey. There was another door at the far end.

"Where does that lead?" Jenny asked, out of genuine curiosity.

"To the swimming pool, and the sauna, and quite possibly a massage room and plunge pool." Clara replied. "I've never found a room it doesn't have when needed."

"Clara...?" Jenny asked, suddenly very aware of the fact that her ankles were connected together with heavy blackened steel irons. "Can you get these things off me?"

Clara knelt down carefully, annoying Jenny by not even stroking her calf briefly, before producing a small device from her pocket, which hummed slightly, before the shackle on her right ankle opened. A moment and another hum later, the shackle dropped away from her left ankle as well.

"Are there any bath materials I can use?" Jenny asked, very aware that her stock of soap was still on the shelf in the main bathroom at paternoster row.

"If you need anything, take it out of the cupboard." Clara replied. "Check the allergy information on each though. Some of this stuff isn't safe for levo species, and some of it does nasty things to human skin."

"Levo?" Jenny asked, not understanding the term.

"Levo amino acids. Some species the TARDIS stocks for appear to have been based on dextro amino acids."

"What?"

"I don't have time for it now." Clara replied. "If it says Dextro on the bottle, don't use it."

"Right..." Jenny said, looking slightly unnerved by some of the things Clara was saying.

"Anyway, we'll be landing in about twenty minutes, so..." She made a shooting gesture, and Jenny immediately began to clamber out of her clothes, not even waiting for Clara to turn her back.

"Do you mind?" Clara hissed, reddening slightly as she spun around.

"I don't." Jenny replied.

"Not that." Clara hissed. "Give me some warning next time."

"Oh." Jenny said, having momentarily forgotten that some eras had odd nudity taboos, or possibly that Clara wasn't interested in her.

Once the prison clothes were off, Clara disappeared them, before allowing Jenny to get on with the important business of choosing her shower gel. There were literally hundreds of options, some of which seemed rather unusual. "Nabooan mountain valley." Jenny read off of one bottle, the label of which was written in angular characters, none of which seemed to make sense to her, although she could read it, somehow. "The authentic scents of a valley in the famous blue mountains of Naboo during the spring, with mountain sunflowers, dusky primrose and dawn sundrops, along with the warming scent of hot chocolate with just a hint of Correlian whiskey." She put the bottle, which seemed to be made out of a substance she'd never encountered before, to one side, having taken a sniff of the contents. The next bottle was even more interesting. The label was written in a flowing script that seemed to translate itself into English as she read. "A preparation of cleansing herbs and flowers from Du Weldenvarden, with extracts of blueberry, bluebell and snowdrop essence for scent." It went next to the first. Then she found "Flowers of Thessia: a collection of Asari flowering plants, combined with a gentle cleanser, designed for use by any species and to raise flagging spirits." She picked it off the shelf, before heading into one of the showers.

Inside, it was an almost cavernous space, considering its purpose. Multiple bronze shower heads, decorated with delicate etchings, loomed overhead, with a shelf large enough for a huge selection of gels, shampoo and conditioner, which made her lone bottle of shower gel look rather lonely. On one wall, there was a control panel, which displayed a huge range of options when touched. The menus included everything from 'removing Deneb VII sewer slime' to 'morning mist'. She chose an option near the top, marked 'cleansing."

Almost instantly, the four shower heads burst into life, cascading warm water onto her, as she luxuriated in the perfect temperature and clean flow.

It took her several minutes of warm water to remember what came next, and to rub on the shower gel, which included the instruction "work into crest gently, using fingertips, and rinse with warm water." She ignored that, and simply rubbed it vigorously all over herself, taking huge comfort from the sensation of warmth and relaxation that the aroma of the gel produced. It lasted for ten heady minutes, during which time she turned the spray down to 'morning mist', bathing in the fine, warm spray of droplets, until finally, she reluctantly turned off the shower.

While she'd been showering, someone had laid out a selection of clothes, providing a number of knee to ankle length dresses decorated with a variety of animal patterns and floral designs. She chose a close fitting silk dress, with a crocodile skin pattern, the size of the scales varying from the size of her smallest fingernail to better than an inch across, in a very fetching jungle green. She accompanied the dress with a full set of twentieth century underwear, somehow sized to perfection, and a pair of smart boots, with a short heel.

When she returned to the control room, Vastra pounced immediately.

"Next time, you silly little ape, I'll leave you to rot." She told Jenny, nibbling one of her earlobes tenderly.

"Who'd make the tea?" Jenny asked, nuzzling the Silurian under the chin, and gently stroking the soft scales with her tongue.

"You have a point." Vastra replied. "I'll need someone to make tea."

"I love you too." Jenny replied, grinning slightly. "I won't mention some of the times I've bailed you out of trouble."

"There was only that time with the bank robber." Vastra said, defensively.

"You're forgetting when you nearly ate an undercover detective, that time with the meat freezer down at the docks, not to mention when you were nearly arrested for obstruction."

There was a grumpy hiss from the Silurian.

"Stop that." Jenny responded. "I'll make you some tea in a bit."

Then Vastra suddenly wrapped her tongue around the human's neck, and forced her head upwards, before kissing her gently and tenderly.

"Err, Vastra, you need some different clothes." Clara broke in, after the clinch had been going for about a minute.

"Why?" Vastra asked, keeping her tongue firmly wrapped around her wife's neck.

"Because Victorian evening dress, particularly a veil, is liable to stand out just a bit at an American movie premiere."

"I see." Vastra said, before being gently tapped on the crest by Jenny.

"Go and get changed, you daft lizard." Jenny said, putting her foot down firmly, and unwrapping the prehensile tongue from around her neck.

Vastra shuffled slightly, before reluctantly hobbling away towards the dressing room, shepherded by Clara.

When they arrived, the TARDIS had laid out a selection of garments, all of which were floor length, and emphasized Vastra's figure. Each garment had a set of opera gloves with it, along with a hat and attached veil that fitted with period fashion. There were no boots attached to any of the garments.

"I'll be changing if you want me." Clara said, before ducking behind a screen, and extracting her formal dress, which varied little from the red number she'd worn when meeting Robin Hood, except for lacking the ornate sleeves and the forehead adornment.

Quickly, she clambered into it, very aware of the Silurian on the opposite side of the screen, not to mention her gender preferences. It took her perhaps ten seconds to switch clothes, or rather, to pull off her vest, unbutton and discard the long sleeved white shirt, and haul the replacement dress on over her head. Once she was guaranteed to be decent, she was able to relax while removing the plain black dress from underneath the red dress.

Once she had changed, she used another door to exit the room, avoiding any chance of an entanglement with the Silurian that she would almost certainly find uncomfortable, and heading back to the control room.

Inside, Jenny was receiving a brief tutorial on how to fly the TARDIS, using the controls, rather than the psychic matrix. Clara smiled at the way the Victorian girl was almost bouncing with excitement, although a casual observer without the experience of a teacher would probably have missed the slight rocking on the balls of her feet that indicated her enjoyment. Finally, though, the Doctor took control of the TARDIS again, before making a careful and controlled landing.


	17. Chapter 17

The air outside of the TARDIS was very different to the air that they'd been breathing while boarding it. It was crisp, and dry, rather than damp and clinging. Jenny, although she hadn't told Vastra, had begun to feel tight-chested while she was incarcerated, and had begun coughing at night. She was still moving awkwardly from having spent two days with her ankles fastened together, lifting her feet far higher than normal, and taking shorter, more rapid strides to counter having her stride reduced to two feet. It wasn't noticeable unless you were looking for it, but it was there.

The TARDIS had landed in a small alley, adjacent to the theatre.

The party walked out, carefully blending into the crowd of well-dressed reporters, film critics and the inevitable woman from the film morality group, who'd been invited on the basis that it was better to have her pissing on the film having seen it, and having been given as much complimentary bubbly and little things on toast as she wanted, than pissing from the outside of the theatre, having not been invited, and thereby encouraged to describe the film as about devil worshipping cults who believe that they can do anything that God can.

The first minor obstacle was the inevitable officious little sod at the entrance, armed with a clipboard, a pencil and an attitude that Gandalf would have approved of.

"Excuse me, sir." He said, as the Doctor walked up to him. "Can I see your invitation?" The stress he put on sir would have started a fight in most bars or clubs Clara was familiar with, suggesting that the Doctor was something unpleasant attached to the bottom of his shoe.

"Here you go." He growled, brandishing his omnipresent strip of psychic paper. "Now get out of the way, you tiresome little human."

"What did you just call me?" The man asked, with the tell-tale glee of the tin-god with a clipboard who has just found a reason to object to something minor.

"I called you what you are." The Time Lord growled. "A tiresome, petty, self-important human who thinks because he has a clipboard and some tiny shred of authority, he runs the world."

"You can't speak to me like that." The man objected.

"Wrong. I just did, and I can do so indefinitely until things change. Now get out of my way."

Reluctantly, the man scuttled to one side, being unable to find a valid reason to actually object to their passage. The admittance card had looked the same as the rest he'd seen all evening, and listed four names he couldn't quite read.

Once they were past the outer cordon, Clara turned to Jenny and Vastra.

"This may seem odd to you, but in this place and time, two women holding hands is an open invitation to discrimination and ejection. So is the sight of two women kissing each other."

There was a slightly sullen look on what was visible of Vastra's face, and Jenny didn't look much happier than her wife.

"I find it as strange as you do." She hissed. "But if you can obey for about the next two hours, everything will fix itself."

The look she received in return suggested that a six foot long tongue was about to make a serious attempt at penetrating her ribcage.

"I didn't make the rules." She muttered. "I'm just making sure we don't all end up spending the night in what passes for a prison over here."

Vastra didn't react for a couple of seconds, before finally making a face that suggested they'd be having words later.

A few moments later, well-dressed ushers began gathering people up, before taking each group to their seats.

Being a premiere, substances such as popcorn hadn't been provided, and were replaced by gourmet foods and drinks. Clara noticed the rather firm way that Jenny confiscated the first glass of champagne to come Vastra's way, before gently slapping the Silurian’s hand when she reached for it. It didn't take her long, though, to come up with a plan. Taking full advantage of possessing a prehensile tongue, with several abilities, Vastra slowly extended it out of the corner of her mouth, before dipping it into the champagne flute without Jenny noticing.

On screen, Luke Skywalker was busy searching for a probe droid, and the slam of Jenny's hand onto the offending tongue very neatly coincided with the droid blowing up, avoiding attention falling on the Silurian now retracting a somewhat bruised tongue.

"You silly old thing, you know that champagne is bad for you." Jenny hissed, along advantage of the screaming tauntaun on screen to cover the sentence.

Vastra hissed back, slightly muffled.

"Later." Jenny murmured.

The response was almost a purring noise, suggestive of a cross between a small cute feline and a concrete mixer.

"Behave." Jenny ordered her wife, using the quiet tone that usually accompanied a three pound ladle swinging at several hundred metres per second onto her hand.

The purring cut off.

* * *

Jenny would have been lying if she'd said she hadn't enjoyed the film. Between chases through asteroid belts, against starfighters and an Imperial Star Destroyer, political mind games and betrayal on Bespin, and the climactic duel and reveal, it had been a film that had left her gripped. The growing relationship between Leia and Han, going from throwing insults at each other to a sudden, aggressive and heartfelt embrace in moments, seemed to her to be how many couples co-existed, although there would have been considerable debate about exactly who actually ran the household she shared with Vastra.

The Silurian was a dominant personality, and was very much in charge when it came to things like detective work and investigations. She also ruled most of the house with a velvet fist. One of her favourite joking threats, that Jenny never took seriously, was to prepare her as the hors d'oeuvres next time she caught a criminal, usually after Jenny had blocked one of her big ideas. Since these usually required technologies still to be invented, several engineers with specialized equipment and the full cooperation of the authorities, Jenny would pick holes in them until Vastra conceded the point. Another threat she made, which Jenny took a tiny bit more seriously, was to attach her to a beam in the attic by her ankles and leave her there. Carrying it out, however, had several issues, mostly involving the fact that they were trading unarmed sparring matches fairly evenly, and that Jenny had access to a fire poker at all times, carrying it around so that Vastra was prevented from playing with it and damaging everything in the room in the process.

Still, their disputes were almost entirely good natured, often revolving around an incident they only remembered as "...that time...", and otherwise little more than a joking prelude to other things. That said, Vastra knew that entering the kitchen while Jenny was cooking was grounds to be smacked with a ladle, or once, for trying to add a large number of sliced chillies to what was supposed to be a beef stew, beaten around the head with a nine-inch diameter frying pan, while being chased out of the room and threatened with a large bucket of ice.

* * *

After filing out of the theatre, after the film was over, Clara glanced at the Doctor, who looked almost contemplative, until he noticed her looking, at which point his expression changed to one of boredom.

"Is that what humans call a classic film?" He growled. "I could have done better with my laptop when I was thirteen."

"I'm sure you could." Clara replied, giving him an arch look. "Considering that we only invented the microchip about fifteen years before this film was made, and that most of the animation was done by hand, I think you can allow them some slack."

He simply glared, using his eyebrows to full effect, before leading the way to a nearby diner.

"I thought Jenny could use a bite to eat." He explained, before pushing open the stainless steel clad doors.

Inside, primary coloured seating clashed with black and white floors, slightly tacky from soft drink spillages and a lack of cleaning. Behind the counter, a bored looking woman was chewing gum.

"What can ah git fore yoa?" She asked.

"I'll have a large coffee, Jenny will have a large steak and chips, Clara will have a hot chocolate, and my veiled friend will have a steak ultra-rare."

"Da yous want somethin' to eat wi' that?"

"No." The Doctor said, deploying his eyebrows.

The Doctor handed over a twenty dollar bill, before leading the small party to a corner booth.

The food arrived within five minutes, a mound of chips and onion rings accompanying the dish quickly split between the other diners, before Jenny dug in with a will to the mound of carbohydrates, fats and a small amount of actual protein.


	18. Chapter 18

Clara was slightly surprised that Jenny and Vastra waited until they were back aboard the TARDIS before finally having the row that had been brewing since Vastra had swiped most of Jenny's onion rings.

"Now, look here, you bleeding daft reptile," Jenny yelled. "When I say share, I mean split roughly fifty-fifty, not you take a massive handful and leave me with a few of the little ones!"

"And I thought you meant take as many as you want!" Vastra replied at a similar volume, waving what appeared to be a magically produced tanto.

"Put it away." The Doctor broke in, firmly pushing Vastra's arm down. With a sniff, the Silurian returned it to its sheath, before employing her traditional means of resolving an argument, and lassoing her wife around the neck with her tongue, before pulling her in for a kiss.

"Silurian saliva contains trace levels of the toxin they produce orally. At lower levels, it acts as a combination of an endorphin and aphrodisiac." The Doctor told Clara quietly. "It doesn't have any permanent effects, and is easily resisted by most humans. Jenny has to let it affect her way of thinking for it to do so."

"She must really trust her." Clara murmured.

"They're in love." The Doctor replied. "They come from an era when love meant that both sides utterly trusted each other. As it happens, some of the compounds in tea act as both a stimulant and a slight muscle relaxant when interacting with the Silurian brain. There is also a compound that makes them more suggestible after drinking tea, but it shouldn't have too much of an effect on someone as strong minded as Vastra. Chocolate has a slightly different effect; it makes them very drowsy, and extremely suggestible. Jenny uses it as a way to get her to go to sleep."

"I see." Clara responded, with a grin. "What does oregano do to silurians?"

"You put oregano on her food?" He asked, seeming rather confused. "Are you and Danny still getting on?"

"Wha...?" She spluttered.

"No wonder she's acting like a teenager." He muttered. "Clara, Silurian bio-physiology means that some if the trace compounds in oregano affect the Silurian amygdala, effectively causing them to regress in age terms. How much did she have?"

"The amount required to season a three pound steak."

"No wonder." He muttered to himself. "Give her a large dose of hot chocolate when you get her through the doors. And be prepared for her to be rather playful before it kicks in."

* * *

A few minutes later, Jenny managed to untangle herself from Vastra, and made her way over to Clara and the Doctor.

"I'm assuming that our first stop is my cell." She said, looking slightly uncomfortable at the idea.

"Well, we could take you home, but I suspect that they'd be knocking on the door in no time at all, and you'd probably end up with Vastra sharing your cell." The Doctor told her. "Before we land, though, you need to get that cough seen to."

"What cough?" Jenny asked, wondering how the Doctor had noticed it.

"The one you've been stifling all evening. Is your cell damp and cold?"

"Yes." Jenny replied, dreading the answer.

"It's probably just prison cough, but I guess it could be consumption. Clara will take you down to the medical room. I've got the equipment down there to investigate."

Hearing her name spoken, Clara turned to the Victorian girl.

"If you want to follow me," She said, smiling, before leading the way through a maze of corridors. "She didn't like me at first." She commented, patting the nearest wall. "But we worked out our differences in the end, and she'll even let me fly her, even without the Doctor. I remember how I'd go down a corridor, spend ten minutes walking, and then come back out into the control room through the same door I went in through. She doesn't do that anymore, at least." She almost grinned as she said it, before leading the way through a small door.

Without even being asked, Jenny began to strip off her shirt.

"If you wouldn't..." Clara began, turning around with what looked like a small box with buttons on it, just in time to get a very good look at Jenny's breasts.

She turned very crimson, before looking sharply away.

"I was going to suggest keeping your shirt on." She said, sharply.

"I don't mind in the slightest." Jenny said.

"Look, Jenny, it isn't that you aren't an attractive person to look at, but I don't really find other women attractive. I'm sorry."

Jenny grinned slightly, clambering back into her shirt.

"I know." She said, grinning impishly. "But I wanted to make sure that Vastra was going be in safe hands. I love her, but I know her eye wanders sometimes." She said, before continuing more sombrely. "I doubt she'd ever stray physically, but I know that in the wrong circumstances, she might seek comfort from anyone who'd offer it to her."

"What do you want me to do?" Clara asked, suddenly feeling as if her stomach was full of butterflies.

"If she needs a hot water bottle in the night, go to her. Make sure to give her some hot chocolate first, and she'll just snuggle like a somewhat cold lizard. If she really needs something more than your body heat... I can't ask that of you. Contact a club on Paddington eight two four, and ask them for a specialist in life sciences. They'll send someone who won't mind and probably enjoy it out to take care of matters."

"Is that legal? Clara asked.

"If it was two men, no; because Vastra is female, it is not illegal."

"That isn't the same as legal."

"It's a grey area." Jenny said.

"Ok, he lent you a television, didn't he?"

"I rather enjoy your era of television." Jenny replied, grinning. "I don't watch the soaps, but there are some really fun dramas being made. I enjoyed one called 'by any means'."

"It's more or less what you and Vastra do, sometimes, isn't it?" Clara asked.

"Sometimes, yes," Jenny said, looking slightly sombre. "Sometimes she jokes about eating me. I know she'd never, but..."

"But there's a look in her eyes that worries you."

"Yes."

"I get that too, sometimes, with him." Clara told Jenny gesturing towards the control room. "Sometimes I think he just doesn't care about someone dying, even me. But then he says 'if I cared about that person, I might not be able to save the next', and I realise just how much he cares, that he doesn't allow himself to care."

Jenny simply sat there for a moment.

"We've only got a few minutes left before landing." Clara said, approaching with the medical scanner, before running it over the Victorian girl's chest at a range of about three feet. It bleeped and tweedled like an astromech droid for a few seconds, before something came up on the screen

"Ok. Scanner says you have a chest infection, and possibly the earliest stages of tuberculosis." Carla said, noting the flinch on the part of the Victorian girl at the idea that she had one of history's most fatal diseases. "I'm going to give you a jab which will clear up the cough, and counter any other diseases." She continued, moving over to a terminal. She removed a small chip from the body of the scanner, before inserting it into a small port on the surface of the terminal. The machine hummed for a few seconds, before fabricating a small, almost invisible hypodermic needle, along with an attached ampoule, filled with a colourless liquid.

Clara picked it up, holding it between her index finger and her middle finger, with her thumb resting on the plunger.

"Which arm would you prefer?" She asked Jenny, slightly surprised when she reacted by flinching away from the needle.

"That goes in an arm?" She asked, suddenly looking as nervous as a teenager faced with explaining the missing wing mirror on their parent's car.

"Yes." Clara explained. "It's a very efficient way of providing treatment such as vaccination, and of rapidly transferring medication directly into the bloodstream."

"Will it hurt?" Jenny asked, surprising Clara, until she realised that the girl in all likelihood hadn't had a vaccination in her lifetime.

"No. This needle is barely twice the diameter of a human hair, and should miss any nerve endings." Clara reassured her, approaching slowly, as Jenny turned to present her left shoulder for the injection.

Despite the newness of the needle, Clara swabbed the area where she was about to apply it with an alcohol gel, before pushing the needle into the meat of the other girl's arm. Jenny stiffened slightly as the needle penetrated her skin, before flinching away as the cold liquid flowed into the subcutaneous tissue surrounding her bicep.

Clara gently massaged the injection site with her thumb for several seconds, before stepping away and dumping the needle straight into a small disintegrator unit mounted on the wall. The unit purred like a motorbike for a moment, before falling silent.

"We need to get you dressed again." Clara said, as Jenny stood there, slightly massaging the injection site, before Clara ran a small device over it, causing the skin to rapidly seal over. Jenny scratched at the site where the wound had been, which was itching slightly, before Clara put her own hand over the site.

"It'll stop in a moment." Clara said, before keeping her hand there until it did.

Once the itching had stopped, Clara led Jenny back through to the wardrobe.

Once they were inside the room, she went over to the console, before entering a set of instructions. A few moments later, the machine paid out her prison clothes and the set of manacles her ankles had been secured together with.

She passed the garments to Jenny, pointedly moving to stand behind the screen until the Victorian girl gave the all clear.

Once jenny was dressed, the next part of the operation became required. They had to re-apply her manacles; otherwise it would seem strange that she'd managed to make them vanish from a locked cell with no egress large enough for three pounds of iron chains.

Before they locked them on, though, Jenny tore two wide strips of cloth off of the base of her dress, before carefully wrapping them around her ankles to form a layer of padding. She tied them off with a simple knot, before allowing Clara to fasten the heavy rings of pitted iron around her ankles, grinning as she did so.

"What?" Clara demanded, when she looked up and saw the look of amusement on the other girl's face.

"I haven't been tied up by another girl in a while." Jenny said, grinning mischievously.

"You…?" Clara spluttered, flushing red briefly.

"Never mind." Jenny said, just before the TARDIS spluttered as it came in to land.


	19. Chapter 19

Inside the control room, Jenny wrapped her arms around Vastra, who responded with a huge amount of enthusiasm, pulling the smaller biped close and kissing her frantically, even refusing to let go of her initially. It took Clara and Jenny several minutes to persuade the Silurian to release her hold and allow Jenny back into her cell.

Inside, the room was just as it had been before she left, with the smells of human faecal matter and rotten straw almost overpowering her for a moment, before she simply dropped onto the simple plank and curled up under the blanket, knowing that the next day would be just as brutal as the day she'd just survived.

 

* * *

 

Vastra keened slightly in her throat as the TARDIS lifted off without Jenny, a sound that seemed to Clara almost like a memorial dirge.

When it landed again, though, she seemed to be in a different mood, jostling Clara slightly, seemingly trying to size her up for something.

"Behave." The Doctor told her, after a moment.

Reluctantly, the Silurian backed off, looking more than slightly miffed at the intervention, as Clara opened the doors, allowing them to step out into the coach yard.

Clara went straight to the kitchen, making several dire threats about what would happen to Vastra if she entered the room, mostly involving being beaten around the head with a thick-bottomed skillet pan then fed into the sausage machine. There was a speculative look, before Vastra reluctantly headed for the drawing room.

Once she was in the kitchen, Clara fished out a bottle of milk from a cold place, having spent several minutes searching for it earlier when she was making the tea. She upended it into a saucepan, before turning on the heat underneath. Once the milk was heating up, she headed for the pantry.

Inside, she opened Jenny's cupboard, quickly searching out the oblong tin that contained the chocolate powder, labelled 'cocoa essence'. She removed the tall yellow tin from the shelf, before taking it out to the kitchen, and reading the packaging. It didn't give too many hints, beyond four teaspoons per half pint being the recommended level of powder.

Then, Clara noticed a small piece of paper that seemed to have been gummed to one side of the packet. When she read it, the handwriting was simple and printed, and read: 'one teaspoon: drowsy. Two teaspoons: very drowsy. Three teaspoons: extremely drowsy. Four teaspoons: asleep within moments of finishing. Five teaspoons: asleep before finishing. Six teaspoons: asleep for two days.' She grinned slightly. Jenny had obviously wanted a quiet night occasionally.

She stirred four teaspoons into the milk, before leaving it to brew for a minute.

While it was brewing, she made herself a packet of sandwiches, which she tucked into her satchel, expecting the next day to be somewhat busy.

Once the chocolate had brewed, she loaded it onto a tray, along with a small pile of what appeared to be fingers of powdered bone meal dipped in honey.

She also recovered a small frying pan, just in case.

In the drawing room, Vastra was huddled close to the fire, which appeared to have been lit using most of a newspaper and several random logs thrown in haphazardly without seemingly worrying about cross-section or length.

"What the hell are you playing at?" Clara yelled hurrying over.

"I'm trying to get warm." Vastra replied, her voice low and trying to sound as plaintive as it was possible for her to sound.

"You'll set the place on fire." Clara said, before bending down and using the poker, safely stashed on her person, to rearrange the fire so that it wouldn't escape, before replacing the fire guard to ensure it stayed where it had been put, noting as she did so the weight of the copper and the surprisingly ornate patterns that adorned both the edges of the grill and the mesh itself.

While she was doing so, Vastra had been sitting there, and Clara turned around just in time to catch a look on her face that suggested she'd been thinking about things Clara would rather she hadn't.

"Bed." Clara ordered her, before menacingly raising the frying pan.

The Silurian looked at her for a moment, seemingly thinking 'my tongue can have that thing off of her in a heartbeat.' Clara twitched the pan slightly, though, and Vastra seemed to surrender, before allowing herself to be marched upstairs.

Once she had got the Silurian into her bedroom, Clara very pointedly stood behind a screen while she changed into her nightdress. For reasons best known to herself, Vastra had chosen a knee-length skirt made from cream silk, which wasn't necessarily the colour Clara would have in any way suggested for her.

"Jenny has threatened to bin this dress more times than I can count." Vastra said, seeming to pick up on something in her body language. "She says it clashes horribly with my skin."

"It does." Clara said.

"Would you like to take it off of me?" Vastra asked, wriggling her hips slightly.

"No!" Clara replied, backing away slightly. "Drink your cocoa." She said, after a moment, proffering the drink as if it was a holy symbol.

The Silurian sniffed the air for a moment, before her tongue flicked out and ensnared the drinking vessel, looping itself several times around the body of the earthenware vessel, then returning it to her hand. She sat on the corner of the bed, before blowing on the drink.

"Clara...?" Vastra asked. "I really need a hot water bottle tonight."

"And you're mentioning this because?"

"I'm mentioning it because you are an endotherm."

"And that means?"

"It means that you produce body heat." Vastra replied.

"Don't even consider it." Clara said, waving a finger. "I don't go in for that sort of thing."

"I wasn't going to suggest it." Vastra replied, trying to sound earnest and believable.

"Sure you weren't." Clara muttered. "Sit down and drink up." She said, raising her frying pan again.

The Silurian made it look like she was consuming the drink entirely under duress, although the slight purring noises coming from her suggested otherwise. It took her about a minute to finish the drink, before she put the mug down, and curled up under the covers, out like a light.

Despite her reservations, Clara changed into her own nightdress, a heavy garment made of undyed wool. Reluctantly, she clambered onto the opposite side of the bed, and almost as soon as she was under the covers, the Silurian was snuggled against her, resting her chin on the top of Clara's head.

* * *

When Vastra woke up, she was far warmer than she had been in days. There appeared to be an ape of some variety curled up next to her. She took a tentative sniff, hoping it would turn out to be Jenny, and that the last few days had been a horrible nightmare.

Instead, she recognised the scent as that of the Doctor's morality pet, Clara. She spent a moment wandering what the girl was doing curled up in her bed, and why they were both fully clothed if they were in the same bed, before connecting the fact that she was warm with the fact Clara was producing body heat, and sharing it with her.

She considered trying her luck with the girl, before deciding, that, on balance, she would probably have a frying pan wrapped around her head if she tried, and it would be no fun if she was asleep.

Nevertheless, she briefly tapped her on the back of the neck with her tongue, transferring a careful amount of venom that would leave the victim asleep for about ten minutes.

Then she reached under the bed, fetching out a large piece of leather, and grinned as she bent over Clara.

* * *

Clara woke up with a splitting headache.

It reminded her of the time at teaching college someone had slipped something into her drink, although thankfully her boyfriend at the time had been on hand to rescue her from being presumably sexually assaulted, or worse.

Groaning to herself, she tried to rub her forehead, only to find that she couldn't move her arms, which were behind her back, before realising her shoulders were hurting. There was also a pressure across her upper chest and against her throat.

"VASTRA! GET UP HERE, NOW!"


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Attempted Rape

Waking up as stiff as a board seemed to be something Jenny was going to have to get used to, she realised, as she groaned her way off of the hard wooden board that served her as a bunk, feeling the cold morning air as she unfolded herself from under the threadbare blanket that was her only source of warmth or comfort in the room.

Reluctantly, she hurried over to the bucket that was her sole source of sanitation, before eventually relieving herself into it, muttering several four lettered words of Anglo-Saxon origin at having to use an open bucket.

Once she'd finished answering the call of nature, she moved back into the middle of her cell, before beginning some stretching exercises. They weren't anything complicated, just some simple yoga exercises that she could do despite having her ankles shackled together. She kept on repeating them for about twenty minutes, glad of the scraps of fabric she'd fastened around her ankles to cushion her restraints.

Then there was a bang on her door, before the hatch slid open, to reveal a warder she didn't recognise, accompanied by someone she did. Even though she knew he wasn't a threat to her, her breath still caught in her throat as she recognised the prison chaplain.

Then, she realised something far worse.

She'd left the case that disguised her Gameboy exposed, rather than tucked underneath the covers or inside her clothing.

His face twisted into what could only be termed a smile, although it put her in mind of a crocodile yawning just before slipping underneath the surface of a muddy river, next to a ford.

"Would you like some words of comfort, child?" He asked.

Jenny hesitated. Despite everything she'd seen, and despite being married to a lizard woman from the dawn of time, she still had a core of belief inside her heart. It drove Vastra mad at times, the sight of her little ape occasionally glancing at what to the Silurian’s eyes was an entirely meaningless, although extremely popular, item of jewellery, as they passed down a street full of jewellers. She also couldn't understand why Jenny insisted that they both went and sat in a cold stone building for an hour or more, listening to someone reading from a book, on a particular day of the week.

"I would, father." She replied, keeping her eyes low, hoping to get through whatever was going to happen next without an issue occurring.

The warder unlocked the door, before the chaplain turned to him, with a gentle smile.

"Why don't you go and get a cup of tea?" He asked. "I'm sure I have nothing to fear from the prisoner here."

"If you're sure, sir, I will." The warder replied, before the chaplain nodded, and the chaplain entered the cell.

The small room used by the warders as a staff room was half full when Jerry Halright walked in, grinning.

"The old bastard has just decided to go into the same cell as Jenny Flint." He told one of the other warders, when the man raised an eyebrow.

At the news, most of the warders started grinning as well. It was a grin usually associated with sharks, although in this case, there was also a certain amount of genuine amusement.

"Do you reckon we should go and help?" One of the others asked.

"Mike, is she going to need any help?" Halright replied.

"I want to watch, anyway." Thomas replied. "This is going to be even better than giving that piece of godforsaken shit Sykes a kicking was."

There was a general movement of warders towards the exit at that point, most of them still holding their mugs of tea.

Jenny sat nervously on her bunk, trying to project a sense of calm and strength into the room, as the chaplain stood a few feet away from her, with a smile on his face that she really hoped she was misinterpreting.

"This is the way it is going to go." He said. "You take your skirt up around your waist, and I untie anything you're wearing underneath it. Then I have some fun, and hopefully you do as well."

"And if I tell you to get lost?" She replied.

"Then I still have fun."

He made a mistake, though, at that point. He moved in, mistaking the dropping of her shoulders for resignation.

She quickly ran through her options. He's not that big. About five nine, I reckon one hundred and ninety pounds. My ankles are chained, so this isn't going to be a footwork job.

The instant he touched her shoulder, she acted, driving an elbow into his gut, before grabbing his extended arm in a single move. She twisted to face him, using his arm as a pivot, before using all of her strength to pull the man's arm straight, then driving the base of her hand against the wrong side of the elbow joint, causing it to bend entirely the wrong way with a sickening series of sounds and tendons and cartilage ruptured and broke, sending a wave of agony shooting up the man's arm.

If her ankles had been free, her first blow would have been lethal. She'd have taken a step away from him, before driving the full force of her anger and fear into muscular action, powering a kick that would have connected just below the man's ribcage, all of the force focused through the smallest possible area, and hopefully into her attacker’s heart. The hydrostatic shock would have caused an almost instantaneous heart attack, and quite possibly ruptured several chambers in the heart. Vastra had shown her the technique using a training dummy, before making it very clear that Silurian martial artists only used the move when they intended to kill someone. It had taken her about a week to perfect.

When the pain arrived at the man's brain, he bellowed in pain, before Jenny darted backwards, avoiding the clumsy punch she'd known was coming before he threw it. A rattle momentarily distracted her, and she turned, seeing the face of Warder Thomas grinning broadly at her through the hatch, before he slid it shut again. She grinned as well, darting up onto the balls of her feet, before catching the next clumsy blow the man threw at her. He paled when he felt the strength of her grip, before she twisted his arm out, and broke it in the same way she had the other.

Then she grabbed him by the back of his robes, and hurled him against the cell door, before following up with a single blow with her knee, which rose viciously between the man's legs, almost pulping his testicles with a single hit.

The groan of pain caused the door to open, and she saw what looked like most of the shift of warders standing outside, several of them exchanging coins, and all grinning broad grins at the sight of the chaplain on the floor in agony.

"We all saw it, didn't we?" Thomas said. "He was coming out of Jenny's cell when he tripped and fell, landing very awkwardly and breaking both of his arms, before catching the closing door between his legs."

There was a chorus on the theme of "indeed".

"Sorry about that, Miss Jenny." Thomas said. "We knew what he was like, but he had too much power for us to stop him."

"I know." She replied. "I didn't want to touch him, but he tried to... tried to..." She broke off, her shoulders falling as the anger leaked out and was replaced by fear.

"I know." Thomas replied, as several of the other wardens scooped up the semi-conscious clergyman. "He does that to all of the girls he likes the look of. And we're right pleased someone managed to stop him doing it for once."

Clara still hadn't managed in any way to get even slightly free. Both arms and both shoulders were hurting like they were on fire, and it didn't matter what she tried, there was no way out. She had run out of Anglo-Saxon words some time earlier, and resigned herself to waiting until Vastra returned.

Meanwhile, in the pig and hound...

Vastra played her hand with a certain amount of amusement, having successfully strung along several of the male humans from a combination of facial expressions and their smell. Reaching out, she scooped up her winnings for the hand, a mound of coins totalling around three shillings, before taking a sip of her wine, and dealing the next hand.


	21. Chapter 21

When she heard the front door open, Clara began wriggling as much as she could, trying to struggle into a more dignified position than flat on her stomach with her arms completely immobilized behind her back. She was astonished at how effective the restraint was, however, although she finally managed to squirm into a sitting position with her legs dangling off the edge of the bed before Vastra opened the door.

"Oi!" She yelled, as soon as the door opened. "What the hell is this about?"

"I thought it would be a joke." Vastra replied, looking ever so slightly sheepish.

"Ah..." Clara gasped, as an attempt to move her arms slightly to one side nearly dislocated one of her shoulders. "Can you get this thing off of me?" She almost begged.

"Jenny always says it's really comfortable." Vastra said, bending down and carefully unbuckling the two straps holding the armbinder in place.

"Jenny is a lot more flexible than I am." Clara groaned, as the leather sleeve was finally slid down her arms, allowing her to separate her elbows for the first time in fourteen hours.

"I didn't realise that flexibility varied among humans."

"You..." Clara gasped, slowly trying to work some actual feeling back into any part of her arm below the elbow.

"Clara, I meant it as a harmless prank." Vastra said, looking extremely earnest, and her face turning a somewhat darker shade of green. "I didn't mean for you to suffer anything more than a period of limited mobility."

Clara just looked at her.

The Silurian stared back.

"Right, shall we have tea?" Clara said, after a few uncomfortable moments.

"Tea sounds an excellent idea." Vastra replied, breaking into a smile that would have looked very happy, and probably was, had it not exposed a set of teeth that would have given pause to most carnosaurs. Clara just shook her head.

Quickly, she headed for the stairs, ensuring that Vastra left the room ahead of her to avoid any additional pranks that would leave her dangling over the hall from the first floor ceiling, or simply leave her secured to a section of stair rail by one hand. As it turned out, her precautions were entirely unnecessary, and she reached the hall without incident.

When she opened the kitchen door, the first thing Clara smelt was smoke.

"You've been trying to make tea for yourself, haven't you?" She said, turning to a somewhat embarrassed Silurian.

"I didn't realise how difficult it is." Vastra replied.

Shaking her head, Clara bent down to the firebox on the wood burning stove, before cautiously opening it, making sure both she and Vastra were standing out of line with the door.

As it turned out, the fire was merrily burning, and didn't send a fireball through the hatch.

Clara looked inside, and burst out laughing.

"Can you... get me... a set of... tongs?" She managed to splutter out between fits of laughter.

The Silurian gave her an arch look, before fetching a set of tongs Jenny normally used to extract the Vastra equivalent of a shank from the oven. Grinning, she reached in, before locking the teapot between the two grabs and rapidly extracting it, noticing the way the paint was busy being on fire as she did so.

"Why did you put the teapot in the firebox?" She asked, trying to keep her continued amusement off of her face.

"I thought that was where it went." Vastra replied, sulkily.

"It doesn't get heated. The water goes in the kettle first." Clara replied, before emptying the water out of the baked teapot.

"Where do the rest of the teapots live?" She asked, before Vastra nodded at one of the cupboards. Inside, she found a selection of teapots, several showing signs of Vastra having been involved in their withdrawal from service. After a few moments, she quickly removed an intact silver teapot, decorated with ferns and scrolls, before filling a kettle with about two pints of water, then placing it on the stove to heat up.

While the water was heating up, she extracted a pair of tea bags from the tea caddy, then placed the pair of the smooth bags into the pot, before pouring the boiling water in on top of them, trying to avoid gasps of pain from the various muscle groups which were still complaining about having spent the previous fourteen hours trapped in an incredibly painful position by an armbinder. Just lifting the kettle, which, in total, weighed a kilogram, was enough to leave her in discomfort, and holding it while she poured the contents into the teapot was almost torture.

As soon as she'd managed to pour the water out of the kettle and into the teapot, she quickly placed the empty kettle on an unheated section of stove-top, before stepping away, and just collapsing into the surprisingly present arms of the silurian detective.

"Clara?" She said, as a wave of black ink receded from in front of the human's eyes.

"Mmm?" Clara groaned.

"I'm sorry." Vastra said, simply, without any of the mischief with which she'd expressed the same sentiment previously. "This is my fault. If I was male, I'd say I was thinking with my dick."

"We all do that occasionally." Clara replied, before groaning as the pain from overstressed joints and muscle groups hit her again. Then she looked down, before whipping her head back up. "Did you have to open the front of my nightdress?" she demanded, glaring angrily at the Silurian.

"It says in the book to loosen all clothing…" Vastra said, a hopeful tone not quite creeping into her voice, along with an abashed look.

"To loosen all tight clothing." Clara corrected her, before angrily continuing. "It does not say that bored, highly intelligent, homosexual lizards should use a faint as an excuse to take a look at the breasts of someone they know full well would never consent to such while conscious."

Vastra pulled back from the human girl with a sharp hiss.

"And don't you dare give me some spiel about it being part of your damned cultural heritage or some such." Clara continued. "I know as well as you that while you probably didn't plan for me to faint, you know better than to dare to take advantage of such an episode simply to satisfy your sexual curiosity about someone. That is common manners, in any developed culture."

There was a blur of movement, and Vastra was suddenly in possession of a meat cleaver.

"Put it down." Clara said, sounding almost tired. "If you used that, you'd be a handbag and matching shoes inside of a day, and you know that as well as I do."

The cleaver went hurtling across the room, before lodging in the door.

"Are you sure you don't want to go back to bed?" Vastra asked, her voice suddenly turning almost sultry.

"Get out of here." Clara ordered her, staggering back to her feet, before wobbling over to the hook by the kitchen door where she'd left her satchel, which included her phone, thoughtfully modified to work in almost any time period by the Doctor. Of course, it still wouldn't work in rural areas in her own time period, or when on the tube on her way to a night out.

Angrily, she punched in the code that would connect her to the TARDIS.

"Yes?" The Doctor asked after a moment.

"Can you give me any tips for dealing with Vastra?" Clara asked. "She's getting totally out of control."

"Hang on…" The Doctor replied, before several gunshots sounded, then he came back on the line. "I'm in the middle of something."

"Right." Clara said. "Is that something called a firefight?"

"Yes."

"I need some tips on handling Vastra without using a rolling pin."

"Can they wait?"

"She just took advantage of me ending up passed out to have a look at my breasts." Clara replied. "So no, I need some advice before I go near her again."

"You need to show her some strength. She'll respect that, and the fact that she seems attracted to you should be less of an issue. There is also the Cadbury option."

"Doctor, I'm not going to keep drugging her." Clara replied. "That's underhanded and cruel, not to mention unreasonable."

"She took your shirt off without your permission." The Doctor replied, as several more gunshots and volleys of fire echoed around the area.

"I need to be able to live with her without drugging her." Clara replied, frustrated.

"I don't know. Use your head or something." He replied.

"What does cinnamon do to silurians?" She asked, noticing that the jar containing it seemed to be almost the size of a small oil-drum in comparison to most of the other spices.

"It reduces libido considerably." He replied.

"Then it doesn't count as drugging." Clara replied, firmly, before putting the phone down.

She carefully searched through several recipe books, aware that there weren't many dishes which combined cinnamon and meat for any reason. However, those that did seemed to have been marked, along with annotations which looked suspiciously like dosages.

Grinning, she began reading the recipe for lamb tagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Vastra is seriously misbehaving during this chapter. I know this is out of character for her.


	22. Chapter 22

astra crawled into the small cavity next to the chimney she'd converted into a nest. It contained everything essential for her: one of Jenny's best bolsters, a warm hollow she could curl up in, and a small stone box she'd made from marble slabs, which contained a stash of beef jerky, along with several 'just add water' cups of tea. It was where she went to think, and occasionally sulk.

This was one of those occasions.

Somehow, she'd upset Clara. She should have known better, but there had been something about her that made Vastra want to take a look, and possibly another. Jenny had accepted the way Vastra acted, and even joined in on occasion, although she'd always refused to prepare or sample Vastra's dishes of criminal. Why didn't Clara do the same? It just wasn't logical.

One of the features silurians lacked, due to evolutionary differences, compared to humans, was the tear duct. Humans seemed to express certain emotions through the production of water from the corners of their eye. Strangely, these weren't even consistent emotions. Sometimes, crying meant "I'm in severe pain." Other times, it means "I've been laughing for ages." And then it could mean "My four legged companion animal is dead." Or it could mean "My son's just come back alive and well from the Boer war." Silurians just had a scent for each emotion, and they never used the same scent for different things. Humans seemed to be the opposite.

Grumpily, Vastra pulled the top off of her cool compartment, before reaching inside and fishing out a strip of jerky. To her, it was almost like toffee was for humans. Really tasty, a bit chewy, and it always got stuck in her teeth. It took ages, even with a prehensile tongue, to work out all of the scraps of meat that seemed to insist on working themselves into the most awkward gaps and cavities, and never doing so with her knowledge. It gave her time to think, though.

She knew, on some level, that she was unusual in some ways. Silurian society didn't see anything wrong with females who liked other females. It kept the balance, in the same way that males who liked other males did. There were always enough to go around, whoever wanted what. It might have been a source of discomfort on occasion, but there was nothing actually wrong with it. Humans, meanwhile, seemed to view it differently. They seemed to think that five percent of their entire population were somehow different, or less human, simply because they liked people the same gender as them. It was wrong. She knew that by Clara's time, it would be different, at least officially, although those who didn't share that view would still be out there.

Without thinking, she grabbed a second piece of jerky, and chewed one end of it. It tasted slightly different, but only in a way that added flavour, seeming to have been soaked for longer than the previous stick. The room was full of the scent of another emotion humans expressed with tears; "I've been jilted." There was also an element of "I am lonely."

Resignedly, she curled up in the warm hollow, positioned directly above the corner of the main chimney stack where it joined with the drawing room and the kitchen flues. There was an element of "I'm sad and alone" in the air as she snared another piece of jerky with her tongue.

 

* * *

 

Clara was unsurprised to find a large sack of chickpeas in the vegetable larder, along with a sack of what were definitely dried apricots, one of the main ingredients of tagine. She also found a tin of dates, which she took back into the kitchen along with the rest of the vegetable ingredients, as the recipe called for them as an addition. She'd already put the mutton in the sauce, along with most of the herbs and seasonings, and it was now a matter of carefully adding the rest of the ingredients, before putting the top on the special dish, and leaving it to cook for around five hours. She couldn't help adding just a touch of chocolate, although she doubted that even Vastra would notice the amount she added.

Then she fulfilled another of her rules. She extracted her phone from the pocket she'd placed it in when she started cooking, and dialled the second number on the list.

"Hello, you." Danny said, after a moment. "Off with him again?"

"I'm actually dropped off at the moment." She replied. "I've been having an interesting day, though. Woke up locked in some sort of leather arm trap, and I was only let out because my host can't make tea without setting fire to the teapot. And then I came around from a faint to find a lizard woman from the dawn of time looking at my breasts."

"She must have good taste, then." Danny said, jokingly. "I can think of few things I'd rather look at."

"It isn't funny." Clara hissed. "I swear she's got a crush on me."

"And when are you?" He asked. Normally, you'd ask where, but he knew enough about her travels to know that when was more informative.

"Victorian England." Clara replied. "I haven't found a newspaper yet, but I'm guessing eighteen-nineties."

"So she'd be in trouble if it came out?" Danny asked.

"She's married to her maid." Clara said. "The ceremony wasn't held in in this time period, obviously, but still married."

"Have you told the wife?" Danny asked.

"That's why I'm here. The wife is in prison for punching someone, and my host needs someone who can operate the kitchen."

"Just when is your host from?" Danny asked, knowing that the chances of a normal answer were almost non-existent.

"The end of the cretaceous." Clara said.

"The cretaceous?"

"Yep. Time of the dinosaurs, and as it turns out, lizard people."

"And one of them is living in Victorian London."

"In the house I'm standing in." Clara replied. "She works as a detective."

"So, you're in Victorian England, working with a lesbian lizard person who was born in the cretaceous and now works as a detective and has a crush on you."

"That about sums it up." Clara said. "She also really likes tea."

"Everybody likes tea." Danny said.

"True." Clara said, grinning. "I'll see you at lunchtime."

"How long are you there for?"

"Until the wife is released from prison." Clara said. "Another four days."

"Man with a blue box." Danny just said, after a pause for a few moments. "Useful to know."

"At times like this, I'm not so sure." Clara said.

"See you soon. Make sure to call me."

"I love you." Clara said, before hanging up.

 

* * *

 

The smell of the tagine quickly infiltrated most of the building, and even found its way into the little compartment Vastra was curled up in, mostly asleep, and wrapped around a half-eaten stick of jerky in a foetal position. She wasn't sobbing physically, but the wall of scents that surrounded her were the Silurian equivalent of shaking shoulders and muffled sobs hidden underneath the covers. Admittedly, she was also curled around one of Jenny's best bolsters, which she carefully substituted at regular intervals to maintain the scent of her wife.

Tagine. She thought, uncurling from the ball, and absently sticking the remaining piece of jerky behind one ear. Jenny only does tagine once a month, and we had it last week. Which means that Clara is trying to make amends? Grinning, she clambered out of the padded cavity, before clambering through the small tunnel that connected her little cave with the disused fireplace in her room, exiting into the dressing room that doubled as her subsidiary armoury, holding an assortment of body armour, varying from chainmail vests acquired in the fifteenth century to magnoceramic suits of thirty-seventh century body armour that weighed little more than clothes, but would stop nearly anything. They were a little obvious, though, having arrived in their factory white, and being too bulky to wear underneath clothing. Vastra kept them for the purpose of repelling anything that needed protection she couldn't conceal while moving, which meant largely cybermen and an all-out alien invasion. Her leather cat suit was made with several layers of material, using layers of ferrocermatic weave underneath the outer skin to allow it to stop bullets and most shot fired by even late nineteenth century weapons. There was also a rack with two pairs of bulletproof vests, one larger than the other. They had been made in the twenty-first century, and used layers of Kevlar and ceramic plates to stop bullets. They were also just about concealable under Victorian clothing.

Once she was out of the comforting tunnel, she briefly considered climbing back inside or into bed, before plucking up her courage, and accepting that she'd have to face Clara sooner or later.

When she got downstairs, Clara was sitting in the kitchen, with a cup of tea in her hands, and other to one side.

"Clara, I'm so sorry." Vastra blurted, looking the human in the eyes, a gesture which was trust building among humans, rather than the challenge to a fight it was perceived as among silurians. "I was being stupid, and I know it."

"We all make mistakes." Clara said, before Vastra darted past her towards one of the many cupboards, before producing a bowl, and performing an action that was possibly the closest Clara had ever seen to a humanoid version of a dog sitting next to its bowl.

"How soon will it be ready?" Vastra asked.

"About another four hours." Clara replied, grinning at the look of frustration on Vastra's face, before gesturing to the poured cup next to her. "That's ready now." She said, unsurprised at the swooping rush that almost emptied the cup in one long swallow.

A few moments later there was a strangled gasp, before Vastra darted outside and stuck her head under the pump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the full details of Clara's improvised revenge, see the next chapter.


	23. Chapter 23

One of the few benefits of the Sabbath seemed to be that even prisoners sentenced to hard labour got the day off. For Jenny, it was somewhat questionable, as benefits went, as it left her unable to take her mind off of the actions of the chaplain.

It wasn't the first time a man had tried to force himself upon her. If, by some miracle, he'd succeeded in doing so, that was something she'd managed to survive in the past. She had developed a method of just tuning out completely, and putting her mind somewhere beyond the ability of an attacker to target, and just focusing on Vastra, usually when she was infiltrating a prostitution ring as part of an inquiry into the disappearance of someone's daughter. Otherwise, it would be very strange if she needed to outside of an enquiry, given the training program the Silurian had put her through. As the chaplain had found out to the extreme cost of his testicles, trying to force himself on someone who would have been considered a fifth-chakim martial artist by a Silurian assessment panel was a very very Bad Idea.

Then there was a single knock on the door, before the panel slid aside.

"Miss Flint, May I enter?" A man's voice asked.

"If you want to." Jenny replied, suppressing her accent with more difficulty than usual. Vastra had very firmly insisted that the young ape, as she'd habitually referred to Jenny at that point, learnt something of basic manners and speaking without avoiding the use of half the alphabet. Jenny had tried to keep her accent as much as she could, but it had been a struggle she'd lost, although by the same measure, she'd never particularly be an RP speaker.

The man who pushed open the cell door was well dressed, wearing a simple suit, and carrying a bowler under one arm.

She sprang to her feet and saluted.

"Sir." She said, recognising the prison governor.

"Sit down, Miss Flint." He said, with what could almost be described as a paternal smile. "I'm sorry about what happened earlier today."

"You're the governor." Jenny replied. "Why was such a man employed as your chaplain, if you didn't want him?"

"Unfortunately, he comes from a family that is well connected at court. He caused them more than a few minor scandals, usually involving domestic staff of one type or another, although they were always hushed up at a certain amount of expense. Occasionally, the victim would vanish, although the Yard could never prove anything untoward had happened." The governor paused, before continuing. "He also is a freemason, which makes convicting him far harder, as most judges are members of the Masonic lodges of the city as well."

"So..."

"So someone finally managing to fight back, even if we can't say the real source of his injuries, is something of a cathartic moment for some of us. I'm trying to suggest that his injuries mean he wouldn't be able to continue his duties for some time to the board, and that we should look for a replacement at least in the meantime."

"Why are you here talking to me?" Jenny asked, suddenly very aware that there might be several people who might have reason to cause her serious harm.

"I've discovered evidence earlier today that suggests that you are deserving of increased comfort levels in your cell." He said. "You're well behaved, you haven't caused any issues for the warders, and you've served a third of your sentence." He grinned at her, before continuing. "Normally, someone serving a short sentence wouldn't have long enough for the paperwork to go through, but I received three different copies of the same form this morning, and under the circumstances, I am very happy to sign off on them."

Jenny's eyes grew wide at the idea of actually having things like padding to sleep on, or a clean blanket that didn't smell of dozens of other people and of mixed sweat and vomit belonging to most of them.

Then her eyes grew wider, as a pallet somewhat deeper than she'd imagined was carried in.

"It would seem that all we have in stores at the moment is a supply of six inch pallets, due to an unfortunate fire involving about a dozen of the standard pallets, which we have no idea of the cause of. We also appear to have a brand new blanket, which has been provided with the pallet. It isn't an army cast off, and was originally purchased after a number of the board discovered that we had no additional items for pregnant prisoners to improve their comfort."

Jenny just grinned as the pallet was placed on her small sleeping platform, along with, to her surprise, a small pillow stuffed with straw, and a stool, which was connected with a short chain to a ring set into the floor.

"It's all signed for." The governor said with a grin, before exiting the cell, leaving Jenny bouncing on her heels as she absorbed the change in her circumstances.

 

* * *

 

That underhanded, cruel and mean little ape. Vastra thought, as she guzzled water directly out of the pump. I play an entirely harmless prank on her, and she goes and puts Jenny's vindaloo powder in my tea. That is an act of sacrilegious impiety, to do something like that to an innocent cup of tea. To serve me that adulterated tea is like pouring oil down a rabbit warren and throwing in a match; cruel, pointless and hurtful.

"Oi!" Clara yelled, just before Vastra was hit by an entire bucket of water.

The Silurian turned, bristling.

"That was for looking at my breasts!" She yelled. "The curry powder was for leaving me in that thing for fourteen hours." Then she burst out laughing at the offended look on the Silurian’s face.

Vastra attempted to hold a glare on her that would have terrified most carnosaurs into retreat, but after a few moments, she realised that she couldn't help but join the laughter.

"This... does... not... mean... you... have... gotten... away... with... this..." Vastra panted out between fits of laughter.

"Sure it doesn't." Clara replied, before tossing something else at the Silurian. Vastra managed to catch what turned out to be an Indirubber hot water bottle, with the cap firmly in place and full of very warm water.

Almost before she could blink, Vastra was inside, and curled up around it in front of the main fireplace in the drawing room, along with her case notes.

"Any leads?" Clara asked, after a moment.

"The usual ill-wishers in the office, two secretarial staff who were trying to catch him for themselves, along with a rival for Miss Parker. The rival was in his club all evening on the night of the attack and the theft, we have witnesses who saw him drowning his sorrows until he could barely stand, at which point he was poured into a cab and escorted home by a friend, who poured him into bed about the same time the watch was broken."

"You've eliminated the two 'jilted' secretaries from your enquiries?"

"The man's head was stoved in with a walking stick with a head several inches in diameter. This isn't a weapon that a woman would easily have access to, or would chose to attack someone with. If this was one of the secretaries, I'd expect him to have been stabbed with a paperknife, or poisoned. If he'd been stabbed, I'd expect him to have survived, because the blade would have been unlikely to strike anything more vital than a lung, and would probably have been embedded in a rib."

"Right..." Clara said, slightly unnerved. "Did the irregulars find anything out?"

"Three cabinet ministers appear to be having affairs with various ambassadors’ wives, and someone they recognise as a German agent was plugging some sort of technical diagrams up and down embassy row, but apparently they were for a new type of naval cannon. We also have intelligence that an agent working for the Tsar was in the area of the Admiralty at the time, and that he received a bag of some description from another man, although the boy who saw them didn't get a good look at him."

"Which is our man?" Clara asked.

"I haven't got any idea." Vastra replied, honestly. "I also have no idea at all how the victim was killed where he was, as he appears to have had his head bashed in on the top of a moving railway carriage on the London Underground."

"How...?" Carla asked, for a moment, seeing her confusion mirrored on the face of the Silurian detective.

"Honestly, I have no idea at all." Vastra replied, before picking up a fresh sheet of notes, while Clara headed back through to the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

Jenny was snuggled, a phrase she had never thought she'd be using to describe what she was doing on a prison bed. Huddled was the term she'd have used to describe her previous two nights, spent on a slab of hardwood without any feature to provide any form of comfort. Tonight, though, she was snuggled into six inches of fresh straw, with a brand new blanket wrapped around her and even a pillow to rest her head on. Add to that that she was busily fighting her way into a tower full of trainers, all of whom wished to defeat her for the points and indeed the money that rested on such matches, and she was as happy as a pig in muck, even with the heavy steel chains still connecting her ankles together, and having to strongly resist the urge to use the lock picks tucked inside the spine of her Gameboy case to remove them. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep, happy and content for a few long moments.

 

* * *

 

When she was eating tagine, Vastra seemed to have very different table manners, compared to the constantly irritating way she'd eaten her steak the previous night. Admittedly, she was busily using her tongue to fish out every single piece of meat, seeming to flatten the end to allow herself to scoop up various lumps of vegetable at the same time as the meat. She seemed to be doing so with playful joy, and wasn't slurping the sauce in the slightest.

She was even behaving herself with the wine, which was being offered first, and hadn't once tried to drink from the bottle.

Clara had served herself a smaller portion, and was managing to keep up with the silurian's relentless pace, although she was keeping a very careful eye on the six foot prehensile tongue, on the basis that she did not want to find it sneaking over the corner of her bowl, and stealing all of her sauce.

Other than one threatened bash with a small rolling pin she'd brought to the table for the purpose, the tongue kept away from her bowl, although it did make several pilgrimages to a small plate of nuts, which quickly vanished.

Afterwards, they adjourned to the drawing room, for brandy and cheese.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not withstanding the nature of the offence, I think that Vastra has learnt a valuable lesson about not annoying the person-who-makes-tea.


	24. Chapter 24

Clara had taken several precautions when laying out the cheeseboard, ensuring that there were a wide range of items for Vastra to enjoy, including a small pile of curried fillets of lamb, a pot of jellied eels, a wide selection of oregano-free chutneys, along with a selection of cheeses, ranging from imported brie to west country hard cheeses, all of strengths that would leave most humans a little alarmed, but like sweets to Vastra, particularly the one that included candied pineapples. She had provided a selection of less potent cheeses as well, along with an ample supply of crackers.

She had also pointedly provided a cheese knife, on the basis that Vastra was not going to be using her claws to cut the cheese, a policy she was prepared to enforce with a rolling pin.

There was also a selection of brandies and other after meal drinks, such as port and sherry.

Vastra, much to Clara's surprise, seemed adept in the employment of cutlery, at least after it had been made very clear to her, with the aid of a rolling pin, that she was going to be using it. She quickly began layering several different cheeses and chutneys on top of some oatcakes, flavoured with cinnamon, before engulfing each construction with a great deal of enjoyment.

"Ma'am?" Clara asked, slightly nervous, after Vastra had ingested the best part of two-thousand calories worth of cheeses, oatcakes and chutney. "Will you be requiring my body-heat tonight?"

"Is it available, despite everything today?" Vastra asked.

"Only if you promise to behave." Clara told her, grinning.

"I think I can manage to behave however you want." Vastra said, with a wink.

"If you even try..." Clara said, watching another mound of cheese and chutney vanish.

"Clara, I'm many things, some of them not very pleasant. But one of the things I am not and will never be is a rapist. If you'd wanted to, I would have accepted the comfort. But I would never force myself upon you."

"I would hope not." Clara said, watching the Silurian entwine herself around the bolster in her chair, almost like a kitten.

"Clara, if you were going to kill someone on top of a train, where would you do it?" Vastra asked, after a few minutes of silence, which Clara passed by staring into the fire.

"On an open stretch of track, without viaducts or tunnels, and with a very long train." Clara replied.

"So not the underground?"

"Definitely not." Clara said before asking after a few moments of thought. "You said there was a big pool of blood. Are you sure that it was human blood?"

"Why?" Vastra asked, before an extremely complex series of calculations seemed to flicker behind her eyes. "I didn't taste it." She explained. "There was no reason to. There was a body with its head smashed in, and it was lying in a pool of blood..."

"How long would you say it would have taken him to die?"

"A few... moments..." Vastra said, ponderingly, before breaking off again.

"How much would he have bled in that time?" Clara asked.

"Not that much..." Vastra replied, her eyes seemingly flicking through files stored in her mind.

 

* * *

 

Getting ready for bed was less of a trial the second night for Clara.

She was pottering around the kitchen, wearing a pair of Vastra's slippers to protect her feet from the stone floor, chilled almost to freezing by the low temperatures.

The milk was heating for the Silurian’s cocoa, and she was carefully looking through the cupboards.

Inside what appeared to be a packet of Victorian breakfast cereal, she was not entirely surprised to find what looked suspiciously like Special K, complete with clusters and freeze dried berries. There was also a carefully concealed pump-action shotgun in the base of the cupboard, along with a box of modern cartridges, covered with an oiled rag.

When she heard the kitchen door open very quietly, she immediately left the pantry, to confront and extremely sooty Vastra, who seemed to be in possession of what looked suspiciously like a large jar of oregano.

"Hoi!" She yelled

"Clara..." Vastra said, nervously.

"You know full well that you're banned from the spice rack, on pain of being served a beef burger without any accompaniment." She said, not quite yelling.

"Jenny would never..."

"I'm not Jenny." Clara said, grinning.

Then they both broke out laughing.

"You wouldn't... really..." Vastra gasped.

"Only in extremis." Clara replied, before pulling something out of the pocket of the cook's apron she was wearing and tossing it at the Silurian, who neatly fielded it with her tongue, which retracted rapidly, taking the bone-meal and honey dog treat with it, and producing an almost subsonic purr, along with a shiver as she swallowed the treat.

"That was unexpected." Vastra grinned. "I don't suppose that there are any more?"

"Not yet." Clara said, before the tongue peeked out of the Silurian’s mouth, just in the corner. "That thing had better stay away from my pockets." Clara instructed Vastra. "If it even attempts to pickpocket me, it will find I have mousetraps as well."

Vastra just shot her an 'I can't believe that you would do that to an innocent Silurian' look.

She grinned back, before slipping her hand into her pocket and producing a mousetrap, which she showed Vastra for a moment, before slipping it back inside.

After a few moments of exchanging grins, she turned around, before scooping several spoonfuls of cocoa essence into the milk, and pouring a cup for each of them.

The Silurian scooped up her cup quickly, noticing that the total dosage she'd be consuming was about two spoonfuls, before heading upstairs.

In the bedroom, Clara had provided a nightdress for her.

"Clara, where is my nightdress?" Vastra asked, confused by the jungle green garment laid out on the bed, which seemed to lack anyone's scent.

"In the back of a dogcart." Clara replied from the doorway, having already drunk her own hot chocolate. "The ragman came around at about half five."

"Why?" Vastra asked, looking almost distraught.

"Because it was entirely the wrong colour, and made out of a material that doesn't retain heat. This one is made of finely woven wool, with a mixture of threads including dog hair."

Vastra just looked at her for a moment. If Clara's sense of smell had been more sensitive, she'd have been able to detect the aroma of 'My favourite nightdress has been binned' along with 'sad and unhappy', both of which the silurian was radiating.

"This one will be nice and warm." Clara reassured her, before ducking behind the privacy screen and changing into her own nightdress. "Where's Strax?"

"He's on holiday." Vastra replied.

"Him, on holiday?" Clara asked, incredulous. "Where?"

"I believe he is taking a tour of the bar-fighting areas of Glasgow." Vastra replied, clambering into her new dress, and squirming slightly to find out how it felt against her skin. "It keeps him from getting bored." The dress felt smooth and warm, and surprisingly easy to snuggle into. Gingerly, she clambered into bed, before snuggling against Clara as soon as the human girl joined her, luxuriating in the presence of the extra heat that Clara was able to provide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dog hair is extremely efficient at heat retention, to the extent that it cannot be used as the sole fiber of a garment, otherwise it would be unbearably hot.


	25. Chapter 25

Clara woke up with someone curled up around her, much to her confusion, considering that her environment was nothing like the bedroom she and Danny shared when they were at his house, or the smaller room in her flat, with the bed they somehow managed to both fit into, and avoid falling out of. The bed was a four poster, with thick wool curtains gathered around it, and an almost solid headboard, excepting several small symmetrical gaps. The cover over her was almost stiflingly thick and warm, with a pattern of what looked almost like dinosaurs, rendered in a primitive style.

She looked up at her bed mate, twisting her head to release herself from what felt like a somewhat scaled chin, and the last few days came back in a flash. Vastra, a Silurian detective marooned in Victorian London, and who had ultimately fallen in love with her maid and carer, was busy using her as an endothermic hot water bottle. She just smiled, as she disentangled herself from the warmth seeking Silurian’s body, before disappearing down to the kitchen.

Quickly, she darted into the pantry, grateful that she'd remembered to slip her feet inside her borrowed slippers before doing so, as she was able to feel the chill of the uninsulated stone floor even through the thick soles of the slippers, which, incongruously, were in the shape of a cartoon rendition of a tyrannosaur. They were also green.

Quickly, she extracted Jenny's packet of cereal, pouring a generous measure into a bowl, before fetching in the almost frozen milk from the rear step, and pouring about a third of a pint over her cereal. It tasted very rewarding, and she allowed herself to savour the taste of home for a few minutes, before heading back into the pantry, and plucking up the courage to open Vastra's cupboard.

She was immediately buried under an avalanche of meat products.

 

* * *

 

Vastra came awake when she heard the avalanche.

At first, she struggled to place the rumble, thinking that the roof had lost a tile or three, or that a heavy cart had gone past the house too close to the kerb.

Then she heard the swearing.

Helplessly, she just collapsed onto the bed, laughing. Jenny had made it a policy to open said cupboard with a window hook for some time, given the sheer amount of meat Vastra had stacked inside the innocent looking cupboard, all of it from named animals, which were specifically called something other than "Bill" or "Spot". Mostly, during the winter, it contained huge amounts of bacon and other pork products, all of which were wrapped in greaseproof paper. Vastra liked bacon. And sausages. And pork chops. And any other forms of pork she could acquire. But especially bacon. It came in unsliced slabs of meat, usually smoked, if she had any say in the matter. She preferred her bacon at last a centimetre thick. Admittedly, smoking bacon did cause some slight changes, mostly that it was an excellent cure for SAD. In Vastra's case, that meant 'Silurian annoyance disorder' usually manifesting as short temperedness for everyone around her due to the playing of irritating practical jokes on anyone in the area. It was an efficient way of procuring bacon sandwiches.

Reluctantly, she prised herself out of bed, before clambering into her specifically designed dressing gown, with three layers of warmth reflecting foil underneath the thick, smooth layers of wool cloth, topped with a layer of velvet on the outside of the garment, and with a layer of sinfully luxurious shahtoosh wool, gathered in her own time period. It was warm and extremely soft, playing over her skin like warm water, and leaving her feeling a lot more able to face the stresses of life among apes. Jenny had sown several pouches of aromatherapy herbs into the collar, along with a pouch containing a length of her hair, which the Silurian tucked her nose against for a second, before keening a dirge in her throat, then heading into the kitchen.

When she pushed open the door, she could see a number of paper wrapped cuts of meat that had split beyond the door leading into the pantry, and was unsurprised when several more cuts of meat followed them, clearly being hurled or pushed away as Clara dug her way out of trouble.

She decided, after several moments, to go and help.

Vastra being Vastra, help mostly meant standing in the doorway, watching in amusement, although she did scoop several large piles out of the way, allowing the human to excavate herself from under two hundred kilos of beef and pork in about ten minutes, without suffering any serious injuries from the tsunami of meat.

Then the ape drew herself to her feet, glaring belligerently at Vastra, despite the difference in their heights.

"Would you care to explain that large pile, Ma'am?" Clara asked, the aggression in her posture confused with scents of amusement and meat.

"It was a discount sale at a meat wholesaler." Vastra replied. "I wanted to stock up, and they were doing an "all you can fit in a dogcart sale. As it turned out, with the doors closed, you can get a quarter of a tonne of meat, mostly bacon, and a certain amount of steak, in one."

"And it's all in one cupboard because...?"

"It's all in one cupboard because Jenny refused to let me use the coal cellar as a meat store, and the game larder is already full of meat, particularly pheasant and venison, which Jenny insisted we lay on for 'the season' although she's never explained what it is." Vastra said, with a 'so there' snap in her voice.

"And you actually needed that much meat?" Clara asked, probingly.

"I might have run out, otherwise." Vastra said.

"Did you actually need the meat?"

"I had a few days’ worth in the cupboard." Vastra replied, before receiving Clara's version of the eyebrows of doom. "I admit, I possibly didn't." She finally said, shortly before Clara hurled a joint of bacon at her. "And that was what Jenny did when I arrived home, although it was a sustained barrage." She said, remembering the barrage of furious language that her maid had fired in her direction in accompaniment to the meat when Vastra arrived home triumphantly, expecting her wife to be happy at the hunting prowess she was displaying, along with the similar barrage of words she'd directed at Strax for not sitting on her firmly when she saw the sign.

She'd herded the silurian inside with a string of sausages and a whole leg of lamb, before firmly making it very clear that she was now banned from going shopping without Jenny to supervise her. She had also made it clear that the appearance of any large holes in her lawn filled with meat would be punished by withdrawal of all bedtime activities for a month, and by having to sleep in separate bedrooms during that time. As for stashing her haul in the coal cellar, the punishment had been unspecified, but said to involve "ice cubes, rodents and the outhouse."

Vastra had reluctantly piled it into her cupboard, just managing to fit nearly a quarter of a tonne in the cupboard without it falling off the wall or exploding. Jenny had shown how much she loved Vastra by laughing at the bulging doors, before Vastra finally wedged a length of firewood through them, having had the window pole for the kitchen window, Jenny's rolling pin, a coat hanger and a bokken firmly confiscated by her wife.

The assorted fillet le bent banker that had been occupying the cupboard, and maturing nicely, had been removed with a bucket, and disposed of in several of Jenny's flower beds, something the human girl seemed remarkably unconcerned about, despite her consistent refusal to sample steak ala pederast or torte de la poisoner. Vastra had been saving them for Christmas, and finding that they'd been removed and disposed of had made her sad. Jenny had noticed, and decided to make a point. "Look 'ere, ya daft ole thing, I tol' ya before, ya ain't allowed ta keep em more than a week." She'd reminded Vastra, who'd responded with a sharp hiss, before being belted around the head with the nearest pillow.

Vastra grinned at the memory, before Clara walked past her, carrying a supply of bacon under her arm, before unwrapping it from the roll of greaseproof paper, and using a small tanto to slice pieces off of the side of bacon, before flipping them into a frying pan, using what looked like an adapted Japanese razor fan, milled into the form of a spatula. The smell of cooking bacon quickly drew the silurian back into the room, and she darted over to the breadbin, quickly extracting a loaf of what looked like granary bread, before attacking it with another sword, slicing quickly through it with a small, serrated katana. Almost before the stub of the loaf had landed, she was darting into the pantry again, before emerging with a bottle of what appeared to be tomato ketchup, which was slathered over the bread in moments. Thirty seconds later, Clara used the second spatula to extract the available bacon, and flip it onto the bread, before Vastra sliced the bread and meat in two with one stroke from the katana, then darted around the corner.

Thirty seconds later, she was back, with a look on her face reminiscent of a golden retriever staring up at someone's sandwich while sitting with its tail wagging just at the tip.

"No!" Clara said, firmly. "Jenny's notes say that you are not allowed a second sandwich if you're going to be working." Vastra cocked her head to one side, and attempted to produce a whining noise. "I said no." Clara told her, raising the spatula threateningly.

Vastra disappeared, clearly disappointed, judging by the almost telegraphed body language, before Clara heard her pad into the study, then put her own bacon in the pan.


	26. Chapter 26

Inside her drawing room, Vastra busied herself with a wide variety of items, extracted from various cubby holes in the large desk and combined pigeon hole stack she kept in one corner of her main operations room, including a map of the tube, a large scale ordnance survey map of London, with the tube lines plotted on it, five different catalogues from assorted stick manufacturers, a stock of jerky sticks, and three additional data capture forms, which she'd gathered all of the information she could on the various individuals involved.

About ten minutes later, Clara wandered in, carrying a pot of tea, a supply of biscuits, including the rarely seen bourbons that lived in the special box that only Jenny could find, and two cold sausages. Her tongue whipped out immediately, snaring one of the sausages, before coiling and whipping it back into her mouth.

"Mhht'pl me uh moo mot..." Vastra began, before a newspaper traversed the room at speed, and collided with the top of her head.

"No speaking with your mouth full." Clara reminded her.

"Morry." Vastra said, swallowing the last of her sausage. "Clara, this is the most complex part of any investigation. I need a constant supply of tea, cuddles and a sounding board."

"Tea is something I can do." Clara said. "As for cuddling or posing in my underwear, you can pretend that you never considered it as an idea." She got the very sad face and smell in response. "Don't look at me like that. It won't work. My neighbour's puppy tries that every time I walk past with a cereal bar. He's never had one yet."

"I need them..." Vastra tried out, hopefully. "They, err... help my amygdala processes."

"Those are the last thing I want to be helping." Clara reminded her. "Last time I affected those, I spent the next fourteen hours in an armbinder, before you groped me when I passed out while making your tea."

"Clara, I've already apologised once for that, but again, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been such an idiot as to take advantage." She again deployed her most endearing face.

"No." Clara said, firmly, as if speaking to a disobedient puppy surrounded by the remains of a crisp packet. "Bad silurian." Then they both burst out laughing.

 

* * *

 

Jenny was walking the wheel again, exhausted, despite it being barely ten in the morning. Her morning meal, such as it had been, had consisted of oatmeal, water and salt. There had been a jug of water provided, which she had gratefully downed, along with a foaming pint mug filled with root beer. Her ankle chains had been adjusted in the guard room, although it hadn't lengthened her stride, it had, importantly, made it far easier to walk in them, especially on the wheel. She hadn't been able to see exactly what had been done, but they felt more comfortable.

Normally, about now, I'd be going back into Vastra's room, armed with a bucket of cold water, and turfing her out of bed. She thought, smiling at the inevitable offended and sad face she'd be given, before the Silurian affected reluctance and clambered out of bed. Silly ol' thing. I know she knows how to get up by herself. She managed before she found me, anyway.

The thought of Vastra's amusement if she'd ever simply put her foot down firmly, and insisted she got up by herself made her grin slightly, but she carried on, knowing that her break was in another few minutes.

 

* * *

 

Vastra was completely frustrated. She'd run hundreds of scenarios in her head, trying to explain he circumstances she was faced with.

 _Body on train roof. Probably not killed there. Blood planted, to give us a false belief that the killing occurred on the train roof. Preparation or an experienced person. Likely not first murder. Preparation unlikely. Cause of death inconsistent with a premeditated killing. A stick is going to be the first weapon that came to hand. If this was premeditated, and the killer as clever as he thinks he is, we'd never have found the body, or had any evidence of foul play. So they were disturbed. But what where they disturbed doing..._ She wondered, as Clara poured her another cup of tea. 

The Silurian absently blew on her drink, before sampling it with an extremely cautious tongue. _Perfect. Given the circumstances, they must have been copying the technical diagrams, intending to return them. No point having a theft that would be remarked on by the first man to open the safe. They'd have been trying to copy them, quickly and accurately. For some reason, they weren't using a camera. If we're dealing with a spy, you can guarantee the foreign office were keeping an eye on him. Nothing more than per-forma surveillance, but he wouldn't have wanted to jump it, because they'd have hit him with half a dozen tails, and probably searched his rooms on some suitable grounds. He would have been therefore hesitant to bring a camera that capable onto the country, and he'd have been investigated to within an inch of his life if he'd brought one in the capital, or travelled to do so elsewhere._

She glanced at another item, a list of the plan pages that had been removed, and those she'd recovered. _We've got the periscope, the steering mechanism, the basic drove system, the various compartments like the mess and the bunkroom, and all of the other systems that require little adaptation for a submarine. What we haven't got is the periscope mechanisms, or the torpedo tube design, or the specific close-up showing how the prop-shaft is waterproofed. If those were retained, it means that they're being copied, as they would have been the most crucial possible systems, and those which would take years to reinvent._

She glanced at another map, briefly, before looking up at the clock. Ten past eleven. I want to go and visit something. The country. She thought. I haven't had the chance to visit somewhere with rabbits for months, or sheep. She smiled, remembering the pleasure of walking through an ornamental garden and looking out onto the rolling hills and moorland that was the South Downs.

"Clara, could you go and fetch my .22 rifle and cartridges from the pantry?" Vastra asked, seeming strangely upbeat all of a sudden.

"Why?" Clara responded, with a tone suggesting that there were correct reasons and incorrect reasons for the request, and that Vastra had better be making the request for the correct reasons.

"I need some time to catch my thoughts, and I find that that happens best in the country." Vastra said.

"And you want a small calibre rifle because...?"

"Because I haven't had rabbit in weeks, since Jenny insisted on restocking the game larder with venison and pheasant. Neither of which I actually like. She also banned me from cooking squirrels I'd caught in the park."

"So, in essence, we're going to be traveling through London to visit a national park, in order to shoot at innocent rabbits on the grounds you're peckish." Clara stated, her tone of voice suggesting that the idea seemed entirely inappropriate.

"That's wrong?"

"Yes." Her tone of voice was several degrees the far side of absolute zero. "If you want rabbits, I can go and visit the butcher's. As for squirrels..." Her tone suggested that those would be best left unmolested.

"Clara, I need to get outside the capital for a bit." She explained, hopefully.

"Would you like to stop trying to come up with a pretext for whatever it is you actually want to accomplish, and just explain it to me?" Clara said, firmly.

"Jenny always likes taking excursion trains. And going to the beach." Vastra said.

"Hoi. I said stop fencing, and start explaining."

"I want to find out where on the underground trains stop under a house or other property regularly, and predictably, particularly on that line."

"If you'd said that at the start, I wouldn't have complained." Clara told her wryly.

"Everyone else usually humours me..."

"Enough."

They grinned at each other, Vastra looking like a chastised cross between an Asari and a saltwater crocodile, before Clara made a suggestion she should have known she was going to regret.

"Do you want me to go and get the carriage?"

* * *

An hour later, she was discovering the hard way that driving a horse drawn carriage in traffic is a hell of a lot harder than it looked, even from the shotgun seat. Admittedly, in this carriage's case, there was a semi-automatic shotgun under her seat, with a sawn-off barrel shortening the barrel to the approximate length of the tubular magazine. According to Vastra, the first load in the magazine was rock salt, followed by 250 birdshot, then 30 buckshot, then two slugs. She assumed that if she got to the slugs, something had gone seriously wrong in any event.

She had watched a documentary about carriage driving recently enough to remember the basic commands, along with steering and acceleration, as well as deceleration, giving her enough of a grounding to at least be able to navigate through the streets, which hadn't changed much, as far as she could tell. Drivers who thought that right of way was calculated by tonnage and aggression seemed as common, although she was relieved to see that cyclists were fewer in number and far more cautious, and that, surprisingly, omnibus drivers seemed to have not yet developed the aggressive and dangerous attitude towards them that characterised bus-driver/cyclist relations in the 21st century.

Because of her relative lack of skill, it took her half an hour to navigate to the headquarters of the London Underground driver's union. She was able to pull up in a stable yard, before leaving her horse with nosebag fitted and attached to a post, before heading inside.


	27. Chapter 27

Inside, the union office was fogged with blue smoke, forming a layer near the ceiling, which was far less impressive than in most headquarters, simply being layered with plain white plaster, which was yellowed by the perpetual pipe smoke. To the left, basic stairs led to an upper floor, cracked tiles forming their own elegant mosaic, while to the left, a sign indicated Westminster Rest. As there was a black licensing plaque over the door, this suggested that an unused railway sign had been repurposed, with the second word painted out and substituted, presumably by the same people who created the original signage, particularly given the silver tankard painted on the sign.

The room also featured a desk, behind which two burly figures were ensconced, wearing clothing that looked as if they'd stolen it.

Vastra marched up to the desk.

"My name is Madame Vastra. I need to speak to Mr Charles on an urgent matter." She announced. "My maid, Clara, will act as chaperone."

"One moment." The larger of the two said, before picking up a speaking tube that looked as if it was made using left-overs from a locomotive. "Ellie, we've got a Madame Vastra and her maid to see Brendan." There was a vaguely understandable chattering noise from the other end. "I'll send them up, then." He gestured to the stairs, before continuing "Mr O'Hara is able to see you now. First door at the top of the stairs."

As she walked past, Clara glanced at the surface of the desk, and spotted an open pack of cards, concealed under a flat railwayman's cap. In the 21st century, it would have been a minimized window featuring online poker or solitaire.

Vastra marched up the stairs, before turning into the office where the union official was rising to meet her. He was, again, dressed in garments that looked as if they were stolen, although they were somewhat better tailored than the door staff. The man's desk was an organised jumble of papers, forming two continental stacks, with an oceanic trench of clear space between them, featuring a battered stretch of green leather, and just a few sheets of paper. Even Vastra was forced to look up slightly at the man, who had the craggy face of a man used to settling disputes with an impromptu display of pugilism, coupled with red hair and a rugged underlying bone structure.

"I'm assuming you're here about some element of scheduling for the train that poor bastard was found dead behind." He said, sticking a hand into his 'out-pile'. "As it happens, I've got a copy of the driver's log, which should shed some light on things." He said, handing over a sheet of paper, with a log-book page printed on one side."

"Is there anywhere on that stretch where the trains stop between stations?" She asked.

"In case he hopped out before the station?"

"Yes." Vastra said, completely poker-faced, even behind her veiled hat.

"There are a couple of places where the signals need fixing." He said, before reaching into his pile again, and extracting a map showing the underground network, and the roads and houses it passed underneath. "There's a signal issue between and," he said. "And the points require manual assistance here." He continued, tapping the map briefly.

"Is there anywhere before Westminster bridge road, where the body was found?" She asked. "I'm wondering if a sufficiently athletic person could have gained access to the tracks that way."

"Now, ya see, if there were something where you could gain access, I suspect someone would have mentioned it to me, as I'm sure that the fenians would love that sort of thing. I would rather that they were kept well away from the tracks, as the packages they leave behind make a right mess of things." He told her. "I know that here," he tapped the map again. "Here, a bunch of foreigners have various balconies and such overlooking the tracks."

"Which of them have you had the most trouble with?" Vastra asked.

"Number eight. Some contessa or some such, who seems to think that we should be singing hymns while we work, and that all the brown bags of 'the devil's brew' should be confiscated. Now, I'm sure they weren't singing anything that would be offensive, but I know the lads like to sing drinking songs and shanties when they're laying track or repairing the brickwork. Most of them are alright, though. I don't think we've ever had any trouble from the Russian exile at number three, apart from the time he came down and joined in with the singing, and the drinking, and he always seems to be at least two sheets to the wind whenever we see him. That said, he has a big old hedge at the back, and another around the front."

Vastra passed about another ten or so minutes discussing assorted matters, such as travel costs, the union movement, a certain amount about Ireland, which revealed that, while O'Hara was in favour of a free Ireland, he wasn't in favour of freeing the country via outrages such as blowing up a bunch of young men who'd been sent to Ireland by their superiors and were no different to anyone else, even if they did wear red jackets.

When they got outside, Vastra hopped into the carriage, before extracting a stick of beef jerky from one of the inside pockets, and being given a stern look by Clara. The human girl quickly detached the horse from the hitching post, having packed away the nosebag full of oats, vitamins and a small amount of treacle, before climbing up behind it, and heading in the direction of Paternoster row.

It took them about fifteen minutes to traverse the streets, most of which Clara spent exchanging invective and parentage allusions with the other traffic, while forging her way through in a slow, but reasonable fashion.

When the carriage arrived in the coach yard to the rear of the Row, she clambered down, before hauling open the door.

Inside, Vastra was curled up on the seat, which seemed to feature a padded hollow large enough for her to fit into, with the remains of a stick of jerky protruding from behind her left ear, fast asleep.

"Hoi!" She yelled. "This is the last stop, and if you don't get out, I'll be back with a bucket of water. With ice."

Vastra jumped almost vertically into the air, dropping momentarily into a combat stance, before suddenly scrambling around to find the suddenly dislodged stick of jerky that had fallen from behind her ear.

"Clara, please don't startle me." Vastra said, trying what she thought was a pleading tone. "It plays havoc with my digestion."

"Why were you asleep?" Clara demanded.

"I..."

"...raided the pantry, and had a whole roasting joint of beef?" Clara finished.

"I didn't think you would notice..."

"I spend most of my time supervising a mixed gender class of adolescent humans." Clara replied. "I could lose my job if I failed to notice two of them sneaking out at the same time." She grinned slightly, remembering a time she'd demonstrated that the door to the stationary supply room was not nearly secure enough to stop a teacher with a master key and a large bucket of something the science teacher had made up for her, which was several times more freezing than ice, and wouldn't damage paper. She'd then set the head teacher on the errant pair, armed with the facts.

"I was hungry..."

"No, you were comfort eating, and having far too much food."

The Silurian once again tried puppy-dog eyes.

Clara just shook her head, smiling despite herself.

"I've got large vegetarian moussaka on its way." She informed the horrified Silurian. "You do like ground forest mushrooms, don't you?"

"Jenny insists they're a part of the full English breakfast, along with tomatoes and baked beans." Vastra said, leaving out that the full English was the most efficient way of extracting her from bed, not to mention that the mushrooms were the second thing to disappear, after the bacon, of course.

"It's on the cooling shelf." Clara explained. "I suspected we'd need something we can eat on the job." Vastra gave her a genuine surprised look. "I spend all my time traveling with him. I'm going to become paranoid."

"I don't suppose you made any garlic bread?" Vastra asked, hopefully, before dodging the gently flicked coachman's whip Clara sent her way.

"You aren't allowed anywhere near the stuff." Clara replied. "I do not want to be bailing you out of the police station for starting a riot."

"It was only the one time." Vastra tried, hopefully.

"No!"

A few minutes later, Clara hurried inside, having ensured the horse was attached to the hitching rail, and that Vastra was inside the carriage, hopefully sleeping off three kilos of beef roasting joint. She quickly transferred the moussaka into what appeared to be a 21st century Tupperware box, before adding a second with two Tupperware plates, and some plastic cutlery, most of which showed tooth marks from a set of pointed, carnivorous teeth. She also found a thermos demijohn, which was quickly and efficiently filled with large amounts of tea, with a pint of milk added, before being laboriously lugged out to the carriage, along with a far smaller flask of what appeared to be navy rum. The packed lunch was tossed in on top of the massive flask of tea, before she reluctantly poked Vastra awake with the fire poker.

"Number three Gaywood Street?" She asked.

"Yez." Vastra replied. "Thiz one will join you when we get there."

Reluctantly, Clara once again set off, remembering some of the warnings about not going south of the river after midnight. She also remembered the thankfully expired caution for being drunk and disorderly she'd picked up as a young student at one of the London teaching colleges, after being detained for a section five public order offence, although she would dispute ever having used the p word to describe a police officer.

Thankfully, the traffic was far lightly, mostly being the equivalent of delivery vans, with a large number of hackney cabs thrown into the mix, but she was able to make steady progress to a mews just a bit south of the river, where she negotiated "two shillings six an hour, and if you lose the horse, I'll send Madame to ask for it back." Vastra had been poked determinedly awake using a pitchfork, and had been sufficiently grumpy and unusual looking to ensure that the horse wouldn't be lost.

They turned onto the road with their destination near the top, before clambering over the wall and vanishing into the remarkably heavy shrubbery, avoiding the various hawthorns and roses that seemed to have been planted in the middle of other shrubbery for no readily apparent reason, as far as Clara could tell.


	28. Chapter 28

The thick shrubbery was very poorly laid out, in Vastra's book. There were no sight lines left in it that would useless from the road, but excellent from the house. It was just thick, thorny vegetation, which seemed to pose a problem for Clara, judging by the constant hissed swear words and occasional sounds of clothing ripping. Vastra, who'd planned for the possibility, was wearing her cat suit, which had nothing to do with the fact that it smelt of Jenny, or the "'secret' pocket containing a stock of beef jerky, along with Jenny's spare lock picks.

When they finally reached the doors, Clara having managed to avoid the wait-a-while vine in the last patch of vegetation by luck, Vastra pulled up short.

"Damn it." She muttered, before switching to Silurian. This is a problem that should have been factored in, but is incredibly annoying

"Clara," she said, in English. "Can you pick locks?"

"I've got a Doctor, remember." She said. "Normally, he just waves his sonic screwdrivery thing, and the doors open, like that."

"Jenny banned me from trying, because I kept damaging the lock picks too much."

"So, we improvise." Clara said, wracking her brain for an actual plan. "How about this?" She said, before simply grabbing the knocker, and banging the heavy cast iron bar against the receiver plate making an absolute racket.

Vastra just reached under her coat, before producing a large leather cosh, and taking a step to one side of the door.

The man who answered the door was holding a pistol in one hand, so Vastra felt very little guilt about bringing the cosh down extremely hard on his head, landing the blow just behind his left ear, sending him smoothly toppling forwards, before stepping rapidly through the door, feeling extremely grateful that she and Jenny had stored their spare bullet proof vests in the carriage, and that Clara was wearing one. With the vest on, being shot fatally by the archaic slug throwing weapons that humans used was considerably less likely, although both of them could still get very unlucky with any given bullet, especially if one scored a golden bb hit, and severed a major artery. Clara had refused to wear one of the spare cat suits, protesting vociferously against wearing something with a variety of loops of metal attached to its wrists and ankles, particularly since it had a padlock looped through the fasteners.

Vastra moved ahead, leaving Clara to keep an eye on the driveway from inside the closed door, before padding down the corridor, sticking to the carpeted sections, and moving rapidly, but with almost no noise that could have been heard from more than a few yards away, keeping her katana in its sheath, and instead relying on the twenty-five ounce lead weight wrapped in an inch of leather to deal with troublemakers.

As it turned out, she didn't need it until she reached the study, at which point she curiously stuck her head around the door.

Inside, a fairly bulky Slav was sitting at a desk, using a device she'd seen a few times before, but never understood the purpose of. On one side, he had a sheet of blue paper, intricately covered by white lines, overlaying a grid. Each line, she saw, was being painstakingly plotted onto the sheet inside the device, creating a perfect copy. Her tongue, however, was itching, and seemed determined to lash out, and deliver a fatal dose of poison into the man's system before he had time to react.

"I'm impressed." She said, instead, stepping into the room. "You took considerable pains to avoid being identified at any point as having been involved.

"Who the hell are you?" He demanded.

"My name, which you will almost certainly have already heard, is Madame Vastra."

"Your reputation seems well deserved." He replied, surprisingly urbanely. "I wouldn't have expected a government official to be able to hire someone as competent as you."

"It was a change from hunting down stealing servants and fraudsters." Vastra said. "I've been bored, recently. There never seems to be a good murder at this time of year. People are too busy doing people things.

"I assume that the ordinary plodders are waiting outside, for me to make a dramatic confession."

"I'm alone, except for my maid, Clara." She said, before showing a mouth with far too many pointed teeth for the man's liking. "However, I wouldn't advise that you move, Mr Grigorievich. Or that you attempt to open the second drawer on the right hand side of your desk. Not if you want to walk out of here."

"What in heaven are you?" He asked.

"I am a lizard woman from the dawn of time, whose wife is currently imprisoned for a slip only an ape would hold against her. And if you make a threatening move towards me, or try and open that drawer, you will die."

"I have no intention of challenging you." He said.

"Good. Now, did you kill Arthur West?"

"Who?"

"He was a government clerk, recently engaged to be married. Three days ago, someone smashed in his head with a walking stick with a head three inches across, probably with a single blow. He was placed on the roof of a train which was stopped at the faulty signal underneath your house, along with about three rabbits worth of blood. The body was ultimately deposited on the tracks at Westminster Road station. Did. You. Kill. Him." She hissed, struggling to avoid shredding a pair of her burgling gloves, which she knew Jenny would whack her around the head for.

"I... He burst in, it was Milton. He grabbed my cane, and smashed him on the head with it, and he collapsed, and I knew he was dead."

"So you filled his pockets with the simple papers, the ones you were able to photograph easily using a normal camera, and dumped his body, in the hope it'd be found too far away to be localised, and for you to be tracked down."

"How did you know..."

"You were too good a neighbour to the railway. Most people would have complained, or ignored the workers and their work. You took an interest, which they clearly remembered, and that, along with a sighting of you and Milton near Admiralty House, was enough to tell me whose house to search."

The man sat there for a second. "I'm impressed."

"If you hadn't been involved in a man's death, I wouldn't have been investigating. You would have been up against that bungler Watson, or some bureaucrat used to investigating inter-departmental riffs. Instead, an innocent man is dead, and you had me on your track. Clara!" She called.

"Yes, ma'am?" The human girl called through.

"Stick your head out of the door for a few moments, and then call the home office. Tell them Vastra has the man who stole artful Dodger, and give them the address."

"Roger that."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Clara had been uncomfortable from the moment Vastra tried to hand her a weapon. Just holding a gun was a huge escalation in threat levels, and something that she had learnt from the doctor was that escalating the threat level that much was unprofitable, and extremely dangerous, unless you were willing to go that much further, and intend to use the weapons. Something she'd had drummed into her during her relatively brief spell in the combined cadet force was that you should never point a firearm, loaded or unloaded, at someone, unless you were willing and intending to shoot them, and that that you should never at shoot someone unless you were prepared and intending to kill them.

The only weapon, of it could even be described as such, that she'd accepted from Vastra was a small metal tube, closed at one end, with a mouthpiece at the other, and a small slot about a third of the way down its length.

"Clara?" She heard Vastra call, after about five minutes of muted conversation.

"Yes, ma'am?" She replied, sticking to her role as a Victorian servant.

"Stick your head out of the door for a few moments, and then call the home office. Tell them Vastra has the man who stole artful Dodger, and give them the address."

"Roger that." she called back, hauling open the door, before slipping the whistle, on a leather string, between her lips, and blowing three long blasts on it. If any of the nearby patrolling police constables had heard it, which was an near certainty, given their own possession of the same whistles, and their ubiquitous use in this era by private citizens for the purpose of summoning assistance, she estimated that at least two, probably four uniformed officers were currently approaching at a dead run.

Satisfied, she left the door open, before heading to the simple telephone on a stand next to the door, before simply picking it up, tapping the earpiece support a few times, and waiting for a response.

"Operator, how May I help you?" A woman replied after about fifteen seconds.

"I'm calling from number three Gaywood Street, and I need to be put through to the home office as soon as possible."

"One moment." The operator replied. "Connecting you now."

"Who is this?" A somewhat grumpy sounding official said, after another few seconds.

"My name is Clara Oswald. I'm currently employed as a maid by Madame Vastra. She said to tell you that she has the man who stole artful Dodger, at number three Gaywood Street."

"We'll send a carriage right away." He said. "The department has been in an uproar."

Just as she put the phone back on the hook, Clara heard the clatter of boots, hobnailed, police issue, in the road outside, along with the sound of hooves and an iron-rimmed wheel. Then a familiar hat briefly stuck itself over the wall, shortly before the rest of the officer followed.

"Ma'am, the police are here."

"Coming." Vastra called through, before Clara heard the Silurian's boots rattling on the dressed stone floor.

Lestrade reached the door at about the same time that Vastra did.

"This is a very timely response, Inspector." Vastra said, her tone rather acidic.

"I know what you're like." He replied. "I'm not going to dump you on any of the local Bobbies on the beat. Which room?"

"He's in the study." Vastra hissed. "This one answered the door armed, so I put him to sleep." She said, kicking the side of the floored gunman. "He had a pistol in his desk." She continued, holding up a large revolver between two fingers, holding it by the barrel.

Just as she handed the weapon over to Lestrade, the somewhat subdued Russian was led out, securely handcuffed. "Take him down to the station, sergeant, and charge him with theft of government papers, accessory during and after the fact to the murder of one Arthur West, attempting to pervert the course of justice, disposal of a corpse with intent to obstruct or prevent a coroner's inquest, and espionage against the crown."

"You're sure about disposal of a corpse with intent to obstruct or prevent a coroner's inquest?" Lestrade asked?

"Placing a murdered body so that it would be carried a long distance from the place of its death, and potentially end up under an underground train, which might well have disguised the actual cause of death, I would say is disposal of a corpse with intent to obstruct or prevent a coroner's inquest." Vastra replied, before handing over one of the man's cards to Lestrade.

Lestrade turned to the somewhat abashed Russian, now secured in a pair of darbies by two burly constables, who were standing one either side of him. "Milyutin Yeremey Grigorievich," he said, glancing down at the card. "You are under arrest for the theft of government papers, accessory during and after the fact to the murder of one Arthur West, attempting to pervert the course of justice, disposal of a corpse with intent to obstruct or prevent a coroner's inquest, and espionage against the crown. It is my duty to inform you that anything which you may say will be used against you in a court of law."

The man didn't reply, and Lestrade made a gesture to the officers, who manhandled him outside, before returning to scoop up the somewhat unfortunate gunman.

"Inspector, I'll be at the row in the morning." Vastra said, as he reached out to touch one of her arms briefly. "There are a couple of matters I need to take care of." She explained, as a coach suddenly skidded to a halt in the road, and a somewhat portly man, with a top hat pushed low over his brow, hurried over to her.

"Sir Thomas Milton…" the man began, before Vastra's tongue made a spirited attempt to lash out, leading to a look of confusion from both the police inspector and the bureaucrat.

"Madame has a somewhat unusual illness." Clara quickly explained. "Her tongue is unusually long , and her skin deformed somewhat."

"Inspector, arrest this man!" Vastra demanded.

"Why? Where's Grigorievich?" he said, shortly before Lestrade stepped up to him.

"Hopefully, this will turn out to be a misunderstanding, sir, but as of this moment, I'm arresting you as an accomplice to Mr Grigorievich. Because of this, it is my duty to inform you that anything which you may say will be used against you in a court of law."

Vastra just watched the man being loaded into the hurry-up wagon, before Clara prodded her in the side with her cosh.

"We're heading back to the row for hot chocolate, if you're interested." Clara told her, before firmly lodging the Silurian's oversized hat and veil combination over her head, and taking a firm hold of her, leading her into the road through the gate, which now was standing open, with a guard of two police constables on it, and turning towards the mews where they had left their carriage.


	29. Chapter 29

Breakfast was served at seven for Jenny. To save unlocking all of the cells, the warders simply pulled a large kettle of oatmeal porridge through the corridor, doling out a ladleful into each prisoner's bowl as they passed. Each prisoner had been provided with a metal spoon with extremely thick edges, along with a tin bowl. The bowl, all told, held perhaps two ounces of porridge, and Jenny took care to eat hers slowly enough that she didn't burn her throat and mouth, or end up feeling even more hungry afterwards.

It was about eight when her cell door was hauled open, and she was politely handcuffed, before being led through to the wheel, a short, ungainly walk through the prison away, which took her about five minutes. Inside the room containing the wheel, she was uncuffed, before being placed into one of the booths, and left to perform her first ten minute stretch walking around the wheel.

Three hours later, she made a mistake.

She put her foot down on the wrong part of an oncoming step, and it slipped off of the wheel, before momentarily jamming between two of the steps, caught by the chain around her ankle.

There was a crack as the chain broke part of the wheel, and she heard herself yell in pain, before stumbling backwards. She'd been just about to finish her latest stint of walking around the wheel, so there was a warder standing behind her, who took a step forward and caught her, forgetting for a few moments that she was just a prisoner.

As a result, she didn't suffer a head injury.

When she looked down at her ankle, her foot was pointing the correct way, but she was still in agony from a sudden wall of pain.

"Bugger." She cussed, before slumping backward in a not particularly faked blackout.

It was only eleven-o-clock.

* * *

"Up." Clara demanded, hauling open the bedroom curtains, and permitting several gallons of sunshine into the same room as a still extremely sleepy Vastra.

"Knock it off, mum... I'm still asleep." Vastra groggily muttered under her breath, before Clara came up with a very simple solution.

"Breakfast starts in ten minutes, and will be serving for the next five. If you're still up here, you'll miss out on a Full English."

The Silurian's departure towards the shower would have disgraced many an Olympic sprinter.

Clara hurried downstairs, before checking on the progress of the sausages she'd put in the oven, having checked carefully that they contained no garlic. According to the small (no more than fifty pages) notebook that Jenny had left in the pantry, giving Vastra garlic was an excellent way of ending up at the local nick bailing her out for doing something incredibly stupid, annoying and criminal. Like climbing up the side of Nelson's column, and swinging on the statue.

The Silurian's progress through her morning ablutions was incredibly rapid, and it took her no more than seven minutes to be clean, dressed, and at the table, looking extremely expectant.

She hadn't quite reached the stage of drumming her cutlery on the table when her large breakfast, consisting of four sausages and seven rashers of smoked back bacon. Alongside the bacon, there was a sea of baked beans, complimented with a continental shelf formed from bubble and squeak, with six sausages and a forest of fried mushrooms. Clara had a more modestly sized version, with a mere three rashers of bacon and two sausages.

Vastra still finished first, which left her sitting at the table with the aggressive patience of a teenager, fidgeting with her cutlery, and casting acquisitive looks in the direction of Clara's breakfast.

Clara was relieved, though, when she wandered lazily through to the drawing room, before curling up in her armchair, and simply dozing off in front of the roaring fire.

* * *

When the darkness lifted, Jenny was on her back, or rather, on one side with her hands positioned to brace her head and keep her airway open. She could hear the yelling of at least one guard, followed by a rapidly receding pair of hobnailed boots, travelling at a dead run.

Then a cool pair of fingers gently probed her ankle, and she squeaked in pain, a noise she hadn't heard herself produce for years, since she took up with Vastra.

"Stay there." She was told. "Alf's gone to go and get the doctor."

"He's on Algarve." Jenny muttered.

"He should be here in a few minutes at most." She was told, before a cushion was slid under her head, and she relaxed onto it for a few moments, slipping peacefully back into unconsciousness.

When Jenny came around, she was lying on a remarkably comfortable bed in a far lighter and more pleasant part of the prison, with her irons removed.

When she tried to sit up, she was pushed gently back down onto the bed.

"Stay lying down, Miss Flint." A calming and reassuring voice told her. "You've probably got a broken ankle, and I'd rather you didn't do anything to it while I put it in a cast."

She just lay there, feeling the man wrap several lengths of gauze around her calf and foot, before applying warm plaster, molding it into the correct position, and ensuring that her foot was at ninety degrees when the plaster set, which was achieved by attaching an elastic cord to her waist, and positioning it so that it couldn't drop back below ninety degrees.

She still gasped in pain when her foot moved, and the doctor noticed immediately.

"I'll give you something for the pain." He said, before disappearing into the dispensary cupboard, from which she could hear rattling and movement.

Vastra is going to be extremely unimpressed with me. Jenny thought. First I get myself arrested and sent to prison without her, for doing something stupid, even compared to some of her brainwaves, but the stupid thing was done after having too much to drink, on an empty stomach. And I would have spent an awfully long time in here if she hadn't been able to use her own unique version of a mitigation speech. And now, I'm going to be off the run for another six weeks, thanks to a single moment of carelessness while doing enforced exercise.

Then the prison doctor returned, and slipped a crude needle, made from brass, into her arm, before pressing down on the metal plunger, sending something cool and strange into the main vein in her wrist. Then, he produced a grease pencil, and wrote a large M on her forehead.

"That's so that if you're in pain later, they know you've already had morphine, and can check the chart to find out when you can be given another dose."

Jenny weakly nodded on thanks, having seem the results of someone overdosing on morphine first hand. It was a very slow way of dying, as the victim would slip into a coma, and then gradually suffer a total respiratory arrest.

As he continued to apply the cast to her right leg, the morphine allowed her to turn her mind elsewhere, and she began to remember the Christmas just gone at paternoster row.


	30. Chapter 30

18th December, 1894

"I've told you before, Love, we are not having a bleedin' monkey puzzle tree this year." Jenny told her wife, as they looked out of the window of their coupe at the maze of stalls with Christmas trees, along with other decorations, plus small gimcrackery gifts. "It ain't traditional, it's a right pain to decorate, and it looks wrong."

"But..." Vastra replied, looking somewhat mournful.

"We're already at the market, so forget the usual protests about cold weather, tree allergies, or the needles it drops."

"It smells bad."

Jenny's reply was to give her wife a look that suggested that, if there wasn't a massive amount of evidence that the Silurian just wanted a monkey puzzle, she might have actually believed that statement.

"You know that the floor polish, which you've said several times smells really nice, smells exactly the same as a Christmas tree, don't you, you daft ol' lizard?

"Why is a tree of this type so important at this time of year?" Vastra demanded.

"It's traditional." Jenny replied.

"Ape traditions are always silly." Vastra muttered.

"What about the one involving buyin' your wife cinnamon cakes every week on the way back from the market?"

"Apart from that one." Vastra tried, defensively.

"Or the one that says you can't have a proper breakfast wi'out red meat, and baked beans?"

Vastra just hissed, before reluctantly clambering out of the carriage and heading, trying to look reluctant, towards a stall selling full sized trees seven feet tall. The trees themselves were the proper Christmas trees, with an almost perfect conical shape formed by thick, bushy branches, covered in dense forest green pine needles.

Vastra took three steps back, and pointed.

"That one." She said.

Jenny took a closer look at the indicated tree, noticing that even compared to the other trees, it was even more symmetrical, and fitted the golden ratio even further.

"'Ow much?" She asked the stall holder.

"Vor you, Vifteen shillinks." He replied, in a somewhat broad German accent.

"Fifteen?"

"Ja." He responded. "Ist et gut, ja?"

"I can do twelve?" She bid, somewhat hopefully.

"Nein. Vourteen?"

"Thirteen?" She countered.

"Ja. I can do thirteen." He said, before grabbing a large roll of netting, and looping it around the tree from top to bottom, then helping her manhandle it onto the roof of the coupe, and lash it on with ropes through the open windows.

"That weren't so 'ard." Jenny reassured her wife, as the coupe rattled off, back to the Row.

Her reply was an extremely arch look, one she knew from experience meant: 'Very funny. I love you too.'

Strax helped them unload the tree, before disappearing to conduct his own operations away from the house.

Vastra vanished upstairs as soon as the tree was in the drawing room and upright, in full possession of what looked like several titbits of sugared fruit. She just sighed, before getting on with the important business of draping the tree with assorted decorations, mostly devotional objects such as angels, but also including a wide variety of other Christmas items, such as stars, and flowers with delicate patterns of colouration woven through them. She refused to allow Vastra anywhere near the tree in possession of a candle, or any other possible heat source, or to help with the decorating, as that would be seen as an invitation to have the tree hung entirely with sticks of jerky with a ribbon tied around them and to have the tree turning barer every time Vastra walked past it.

After the tree was decorated, and transformed into a medley of colours and tints, she shook her head resignedly at the sound of the doorbell.

"Comin'" She yelled, before getting back to normal life.

* * *

19th December 1894

"Remember, you daft old thing, you ain't allowed to try and catch it." Jenny reminded her wife, as Strax navigated through the traffic that only seemed to grow heavier during the festive period.

"Who made that rule?" Vastra asked, snuggled into the side of the smaller human for warmth, having never become accustomed to the concept of ice and snow at any time of the year.

"I think it was to cut down on the number o' people tryin' to save 'emselves a few shillin's and just 'avin' one, then takin' away on their 'eels without payin' for it."

"I would never steal a goose." Vastra said, sounding surprisingly outraged.

"I know you wouldn't, but not all people are like you, Love."

"Apes always seem to have greatly reduced expectations of each other." Vastra commented, before being slapped on the head by Jenny.

"No. Humans have found that other humans are usually untrustworthy if they come into position of your goods before 'avin' paid for them. Humans, not apes. Humans."

Vastra tried to look sad and mournful, but Jenny was having none of it.

"Don't you dare." She said. "You know that I dislike being called an ape, monkey, primitive or mammal." She reminded her wife. "I know you do it without thinkin', but you need to stop doin' it."

Further debate was postponed when they finally arrived in Brixton, and were able to spot the large yard full of geese busily foraging for food.

"Stay in the carriage." Jenny told her wife. "The last thin' I want is for you to be spotted, and connected to last year."

"I didn't do anything last year!" Vastra said, knowing she'd lost the argument a long time ago.

"I remember." Jenny replied, before clambering out of the coupe, and heading over to the nearest stall-holder.

"What cin I get ya?" he asked.

"I need a goose large enough four about twenty-five."

"Ya mistress having a big bash, then?"

"Yes." Jenny replied.

After a few moments, he turned and nodded.

"And what's the address?"

"Thirteen Paternoster row." Jenny said.

We'll have it round on Christmas Eve. It'll take all night to cook, though."

"That'll be fine." She told him. "'Ow much?"

"Two Guineas."

"Two flamin' guineas?" she exclaimed, at the idea of handing over more money than a working family saw in a year.

"Tell ya what; I can do you a deal. One Guinea, ten shillings."

"Done." She told him, before handing over the money.

24th December, 1894

Jenny always left the kitchen window open during the Christmas period. There were fewer smells, and the local housebreakers knew better than to attempt to force their way past the small maidservant and into the rest of the house. The last one to try such a feat had spent the next few days in the Royal Free Hospital, having a pepper mill painstakingly and carefully extracted from his rectal passage, having first been belted over the head with an eleven inch skillet pan a centimetre thick. His skull had suffered several factures in the accident.

The main reason, other than culling the human genome, that she left the window open, was as a precaution against the unexpected approach of the carol singer.

It wasn't that Vastra actually has anything against them. In fact, it was precisely the opposite. She enjoyed the carols, and got extremely grumpy if she discovered she'd missed an opportunity to join in out of tune.

She was also the reason the punch bowl had a locking cover, with a spout designed so that while punch could flow out, a stray, six foot tongue couldn't find any ingress and have the entire jugful. Vastra had managed to raid the punch bowl one year, and the interactions between sloe gin and her digestive system had kept Jenny up for two nights running.

She just smiled, as she painted the honey and mustard glaze onto the goose.

It was as large as advertised. This was going to be a problem, as, according to some quick measurements, the goose was too large for the oven door.

Fortunately, Jenny was self-sufficient in matters of domestic maintenance, and her tool bag would have looked considerably larger than average even for a plumber travelling to a large building project. Her hand initially reached for a container of small discs, originally from the 23rd century, each of which was designed to remove locking mechanisms and their attachment points from a doorframe. Hang on. She thought. The last thing I want is to blow the flamin' door off of the oven on Christmas Eve. I'd never get the bloomin' turkey done if I did that. Instead, she reached for a pair of gloves containing a polymer with an almost unimaginable specific heat capacity, but which were thin enough not to pose issues when using small tools. Quickly, she used the servicing kit, along with a small can of WD40, to dislodge the heavy slab of cast iron, before heaving it away from the oven, along with an inch of frame, which increased the effective size of the actual door by a considerable two inches, and just allowed the turkey and associated roasting tray inside, before, using several large pots and pans, she managed to chock the door back into place, and screw it on.

Then she did a patrol of the house. Vastra had been persuaded, although with less carrying than a small child, that it was time for bed. That meant that there were assorted devices spread liberally around the house, mostly using stacks of cans, but one year, once Vastra understood the Christmas tradition, she had caught the Silurian in possession of a three foot wide mantrap, and trying to lever it open, standing in front of the fireplace with the fire guards positioned to channel anyone coming down the chimney into the teeth of the trap.

Carefully, she exited the house, before cracking open the large shed in which she kept her firewood, and which Vastra had been banned from for smashing the window with a length of firewood. She was perpetually astonished that Vastra actually believed in Santa, as it meant that she couldn't just acquire all of the Silurian’s presents openly, and instead had to stash them in a sealed box in the woodshed. Vastra had been taught that you brought some presents, and Santa topped them up. In her case, that meant that sundries such as treats, new DVDs and human novels came from Santa, while items such as new additions to the paternoster row armoury, would come from Jenny.

* * *

Watching Vastra wake up on Christmas morning was always a highly entertaining prospect for Jenny. Despite her age, the Silurian was just as bouncy as any child on Christmas morning. Watching her disappear down the stairs in order to find out if Santa had been, and to check if any of her Santa traps had been tripped always brought a smile to her wife's face, although it was usually quickly wiped away when the Silurian penetrated the kitchen's and attempted to raid the oven for food. Usually this would simply result in a burnt tongue, but she had no intention of allowing Silurian saliva to contaminate the goose, or the bacon associated with it, never mind the stuffing and the sausage meat stuffed inside the giant bird.

Vastra was usually frustrated by the fact that she was only allowed to open presents that Santa had brought her on Christmas Day, although this usually provided her with a large supply of assorted sweetmeats and small items of jewellery.

At about eleven, Jenny was working in the kitchen with the window open and to produce Christmas puddings, including the traditional plum pudding, along with several jellies flavoured with fruit juice and topped with ice cream. There was also a trifle along with a Yule log and the varieties of cake. A few minutes after the clock struck the hour, she became aware of a certain racket coming from outside in the yard. Sticking her head through the window, she observed an impromptu game of football that seems to have been triggered by the mysterious appearance of a ball in the hands of one of the street Arabs that Vastra employed under the catchall term of the Paternoster irregulars. It wasn't an item that would have been called a football by any of the professional sides, consisting of little more than a mass of rags wrapped around something bearing a certain resemblance to a ball and that would give when kicked, protecting their bare feet from the near certainty of broken toes that would have resulted in kicking a regular football or one with a wooden core. Jenny allowed them to continue playing for some time, although she brought the game to an immediate halt when a careless shot threatened one of her windows.

By this time, however, she had finished laying the table, and the goose was ready, and extracted from the oven, with the aid of a harpoon, one of many relics from previous cases that had ended up scattered around the house, and surrounded by serving platters mounded with roasted vegetables, along with hundreds of sausages, several pigs worth of bacon, and four bottles of cranberry sauce.

Jenny never had any problems with any of the Arabs trying to steal any of the silverware, even while eating with it, and as such, had had no qualms about laying the table with silverware.

Once Vastra had arrived, the meal began, the huge goose proving ample even for so many diners, with seconds available in every category. There were also crackers, laden with appropriate presents, such as packs of playing cards, small notebooks with pencils and even with small, damage protected magnifying glasses. Almost before Jenny had cleared the table, several card games had broken out, using the after-dinner peanuts as tokens. It was always pleasurable for her to host a Christmas party, particularly given that the recipients of that generosity were unlikely to have too many hot meals each year.


	31. Chapter 31

One of the things Clara was quickly learning was just how much time was saved by modern labour saving devices, such as dishwashers. Even in her flat, she normally operated on the principle that if some item of crockery needed cleaning, it went in the dishwasher, while saucepans were one of the few items that went in the sink, although she only used them a few times a month, due to the combined requirements of life as a teacher and as the travelling companion of a Time Lord. A fair amount of the time when she was travelling, she was able to "eat out" as the Doctor put it, although he had to be careful, simply because there were inevitably foodstuffs and chemicals that she suffered allergic reactions to. The consequences of her going into anaphylactic shock on a planet where she would be an unusual sight, simply for being human, never mind a baseline 21st century human, were likely to be incredibly dangerous. She had brought herself an epipen, and told the Doctor exactly how and when to use it, in the event that she suffered a severe and unexpected reaction. She lived mostly on a diet of ready meals and reheated leftovers when she hadn't been spending the night with Danny or was otherwise unable to find the time to cook

Washing a day's worth of crockery by hand was very time consuming, and had given her ample time to think about exactly what her best option was for reining in Vastra, without using a baseball bat.

* * *

Vastra, meanwhile, was curled up in a type of bed that could only be accurately described as a nest. It was set into the middle of a room that was the silurian's equivalent of a Zen meditation cell, full of flowering plants salvaged from the late cretaceous, and accessible to pollinators, which she knew an awful lot better than to try and eat for a snack. Jenny had been very unsympathetic when the Silurian presented to her a six foot tongue with a bee sting lodged a short way from the top. There had been an awful lot of laughter, although the little ape had at least consented to extract the venom gland without squeezing it, which had been extremely carefully done with a pair of forceps which had been pressed against the surface of her tongue and gently positioned below the gland, before it was suddenly pulled free of the tongue, leaving Vastra a slightly mottled green and orange colour.

She grinned slightly as she remembered ensnaring the small human with her tongue, wrapping it around her neck as soon as she'd disposed of the forceps. Then she'd given Jenny a small dose of silurian venom, just enough, as she had put it with a grin, to keep her quiet, before laying the ape across her lap and, keeping her carefully supported with a tongue around her shoulders, spending a few minutes spanking the human mercilessly, enjoying the slight struggles that were all Jenny could manage under the level of envenomation, before marching the human upstairs for some more fun as soon as she regained enough muscular control to move under her own power. By the time that Jenny had actually been able to offer any resistance, she'd been fastened onto the large bed in the main bedroom at all four corners.

* * *

After about an hour, Clara placed the last of the dishes on the drying rack, before turning her attention to the stone floor, which she quickly decided could cope for a few more days without washing it down, although she did sweep the area next to the servants entrance, before running a broom over the hall floor, which she followed up with a mop, collecting the majority of the dirt that had built up while she had been busy providing Vastra with a Watson.

At about half past one, the post came through the letterbox. Clara, who had just finished cleaning the relevant section of floor, gathered it up, before taking it into the drawing room to differentiate between routine correspondence (bills, complaints about Vastra, junk advertising mail) and letters requesting the assistance of the Great Detective. She posted most of the junk mail into an in-tray, before taking the small sheaf of requests for help down to Vastra.

When she arrived, the Silurian’s position reminded her of nothing more than a kitten curled around a spring of catnip. There was a flower next to her head, and she was curled into an almost endearing ball around it, completed by a fluffy blanket patterned with the Jurassic park logo. It was a scene she couldn't resist. Quietly, so as not to wake the Silurian, she extracted her phone, before simply taking a photo of Vastra, which she suspected Jenny would like a copy of.

Then she swung her poker against the ceremonial gong at one end of the room.

The Silurian’s reaction was instantaneous. She came awake almost instantly, before scrabbling to conceal her blanket and whatever plant she'd been breathing the pollen of, before attempting to look dignified when Clara started laughing.

Then the Silurian bowed to the inevitable, and joined in, before reluctantly wandering over to her working desk, which was layered with items of interest.

"There are a whole bunch of people looking for assorted people and things." Clara told her. "There's also a bank manager looking for some suggestions about how his vault was raided last night, and what looks like fan mail from a Mr Conan Doyle." She commented, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Arthur's more or less harmless." Vastra replied. "Jenny feeds him the odd story, just a few every year."

"Hang on?" Clara burst out. "Arthur Conan Doyle, the same one who created Sherlock Holmes, sends you fan mail, and Jenny feeds him stories?"

"Is that what he calls his detective?" Vastra asked. "Jenny has a whole stack of various penny dreadful type things with his name on the cover, although most of the things Holmes calls "feats" of deduction could be figured out fairly easily by anyone with a working knowledge of apes and a subscription to the London papers, possibly excluding the illustrated dailies." Clara half-heartedly aimed a newspaper at her head, which the Silurian ducked, not overly concerned.

"They're taught in schools in my time, you damned handbag." She said, smiling. "They're considered literary classics. And most of the deduction points are very arcane to the reader."

"Handbag?" Vastra asked, seemingly mystified by the reference.

"There was a period when a percentage of handbags were manufactured using the skin of reptiles such as alligators."

Vastra hissed, before seeming to inflate, causing Clara to take a very rapid step to put her beyond tongue range of the Silurian.

"I am not a handbag." She hissed.

"Right, got it, err, tea?" Clara asked, hopefully.

"Tea would be excellent." Vastra said, deflating rapidly.

* * *

As Clara scuttled back up the stairs, Vastra gave the flowering plant she'd been inhaling the pollen from an extremely irritated glance. See what you made me do? She thought. This is going to be the last time I sniff your pollen, regardless of how relaxed it makes me feel while I'm breathing it constantly.

Jenny had a whole shelving unit devoted to the penny dreadful serialisations of the Sherlock Holmes series, along with other assorted materials of the same type, along with a somewhat dusty selection of romance novels she and Vastra had shared, before they found each other. In fairness, the supply of volumes was sufficient to keep even Vastra's eidetic memory entertained, and Jenny usually picked up the latest instalments with the groceries.

Unfortunately, she'd let slip about some of Vastra's experiments with assorted intoxicant substances in one of her letters to Conan Doyle, resulting in Sherlock Holmes developing a cocaine and nicotine habit, although Vastra had no interest in consuming the smoke produced by burning a particular group of leaves, particularly given the heavy metal count in the leaves and their smoke, which had led her to confiscate Jenny's cigarette case and the contents.

The other thing that had somehow made it into the Holmes series was her love of chemistry, which had nothing at all in the slightest to do with being able to turn a packet of cheap dye into sufficient high explosive to blow a door from its hinges, if carefully applied, or the number of different things she had quietly injected herself with since ending up marooned among primitives. That said, she had to be able to explain her ability to distinguish human blood from that of an animal or from stains produced by other iron bearing products, which largely relied on scent, and occasionally, and very covertly, taste.

Her unintended anger at Clara for calling her a handbag had largely come from the connotations of humans deliberately killing reptiles. The plant she'd been inhaling had allowed her to relive the life she had had before going into cryosleep, and the idea, so shortly after awakening from a society where primitive mammals were nothing more than a nuisance to crops, of humans killing and wearing reptiles had set off her anger about the death of her sisters far more easily than it might otherwise have been aroused.

Clara came back down the stairs with surprising agility, which quickly attracted Vastra's gaze, which played over the little human's figure. She looks good. Vastra thought, as her gaze roamed over the human. All it needs is a little bow, and possibly a few less garments, and I could serve her to the club as a very delightful main course. Perhaps leather harness...

"Hoi!" Clara burst out, interrupting her thought processes. "Stop salivating."

Vastra tucked all but the tip of her tongue back into her mouth, before reluctantly turning her attention away from the human's figure and onto the contents of the tea tray, which included a rack of rich tea biscuits.

"My apologies, Clara. My mind was elsewhere." She said, trying to avoid staring at the human's rear end." _Damn this drug. It makes me far too easily aroused. Can I get her to try some...?_

Clara responded with a glare that followed the path of her gaze, before returning to the Silurian’s eyes. "I don't do that, Vastra. I'm just not that sort of human."

Vastra filled the air with her 'sad, jilted' pheromone, as Clara headed upstairs. "I'm going to the butchers to pick up a decent cut of lamb." She told the Silurian, trying not to notice the way her eyes had followed certain parts of her up the stairs.


	32. Chapter 32

About ten minutes after Clara set off to go to the butchers, an ape began banging on the front door. Vastra, already mostly recovered from her earlier bout of peevishness, reluctantly crawled out of the cellar to answer the door.

Outside on the step, she observed an ape that appeared to be wearing a police officer's uniform. It was a rather large and craggy example of its kind, with hair could have been described as between brown and blond, depending on the precise light conditions, and an aroma suggesting that it usually carried out interrogations with a certain amount of enthusiasm, and a great deal of physicality.

"Inspector Attenborough, madam." He introduced himself. "Someone told me to come over here and tell you that your maid is in the prison hospital."

Vastra's reaction was almost instantaneous. She took a slight step back, making a cloud of pheromones that suggested 'alarmed, resigned and upset'. "What happened?"

"She slipped and fell on the wheel, and the chain from one of her manacles got stuck between the slats. The sawbones thinks she has a broken ankle."

"Would be possible to see her?" Vastra asked, upset that she'd unwittingly created the situation in which her little ape got herself hurt.

"That is why I've been sent to fetch you, ma'am." He replied. "Sawbones wanted someone she was comfortable with for when she woke up. Given what happened to the chaplain when he tried a little bit of one-on-one counselling, I can understand that he doesn't want her waking up and nervous and surrounded by strangers."

Vastra just shook her head. I swear I am going to tie my little ape to the bed when she gets out, and ensure she never gets out again, except on a lead. She seems too good at finding trouble, even if she isn't actively looking for it, for my peace of mind.

"I think anyone would react badly in that situation, Inspector." Vastra said out loud. "Do you have a cab?"

"It's waiting outside." He said. "Where's your coat?"

"On the rack. It's the one with a hood." Vastra said, slightly stunned by the fact Jenny had managed to hurt herself inside prison. While the officer attended to her coat, Vastra headed into the kitchen, before fishing out a box of Joseph Terry and Sons luxury chocolates Santa had delivered to Jenny for Christmas, which included a variety of candied fruits dipped in chocolate, balls of nougat covered by chocolate, and simple lumps of flavoursome chocolate. The box itself was somewhat ornate, with multiple tiers each with their own array of chocolate accessible via drawers. There were even remarkably artistic scenes on all sides of the box, except at the bottom, which had been left plain.

When she returned, the officer was standing holding her coat, which he surprisingly solicitously helped her into, before providing her with assistance down the flight of stairs connecting Paternoster row to the street below.

The cab ride through the streets was relatively brief, with Vastra able to think of little else but the ape she had initially brought home out of curiosity and charity, and possibly to give her a more convenient meal at some point in the near future, before reluctantly discovering that a. She cared about it, b. It was most definitely a person and c. It was sub-adolescent when she initially caught it. The results of the ape's adolescent stage had been startling, and it had gone through a transformation from an essentially androgynous primate, albeit one with very little fur, into a surprisingly pleasant on the eye, mature specimen. At that point, via a certain amount of experimentation, it had been discovered that while Vastra had an interest in both male and female persons, that Jenny could not find any form of attraction to male apes, despite multiple attempts by Vastra to encourage her to pair with another ape of the opposite gender. She suspected that hormones had to be involved in an astonishing level in mating rituals after discovering what appears to be poetry while conducting a search of her ape's quarters to determine exactly why she hadn't paired yet.

The slight trouble had been that all the poetry had been about her. That discovery had caused her to take a slight step back and re-analyse her reasons for not eating her ape, or otherwise sending on its way, with a good reference. It had quickly become a friend, and within a few months, and reached the stage where she would be very sad to see it to go within a few months.

Things had developed along those lines for a while, before she finally realised that she had fallen in love with the ape as well during one of its periods of heat. They had done a certain amount of experimentation, before discovering ways both of them could make the other very happy. At that point, life-pairing, or marrying, as Jenny had insisted on calling it, had become the only option at an emotional level to Vastra's surprise, as she had found she loved the small ape at least as much as she had ever loved any of her own species. Via the TARDIS, they had travelled to somewhere they could legally marry, although Vastra's species had been fudged on the marriage certificate.

She came out of her reverie outside the prison gates, where she disembarked from the cab, Attenborough paying the driver, before hurrying through the wicket gate set into the heavily reinforced oak doors, before quickly traversing the prison yard, Vastra's heels and the hobnailed boots of the police inspector creating a duet that was surprisingly musical to her ears.

The squeal of poorly oiled hinges on a heavy door, however, was most definitely not to her tastes.

Her pace was only increased with the proximity of her beloved little ape, and she nearly suffered an injury of her own from sheer haste she hurried through the prison to the infirmary.

Inside, Jenny was flat on her back, one leg encased in a white material that appeared to be rigid, presumably a plaster of Paris cast. Her face was somewhat pale, and confusingly, someone appeared to have written a large M in the centre of her forehead. Vastra wanted nothing more than to rush over to her ape and grab up in her arms and just kiss her, telling her it was going to be okay. She looked quite possibly worse than the time she'd come off of a third story roof during an investigation, although she had fortunately landed in a tree, which had sufficed to break her fall, and her collarbone, along with knocking out three teeth.

"How long till she wakes up?" Vastra asked.

"We're letting her sleep on as long as she can." The doctor replied.

"Doctor…?"

"Rowlands, ma'am."

"Doctor Rowlands, this is in no way a sign of distrust in your practice, but for my own peace of mind, as Jenny is extremely dear to me, I would like to consult my own physician."

"I can understand that. She nearly caught herself a nasty bang on the head, and she seems surprisingly weak."

At the last words, Vastra quailed slightly. She knew that before Jenny had been dropped off, she had been given a general medication to annihilate various bacteria, particularly those responsible causing the disease of tuberculosis. If it hadn't worked, or the disease had come back, Vastra was very afraid of the potential consequences.

"I will summon him immediately." She said, before pulling a card out of her pocket. "Is there a phone I can use?" The man pointed into his office.

Hopefully, Vastra picked up the telephone on the desk, and placed the connected earpiece and mouthpiece in the appropriate configuration, before resting the bell button down for several seconds, until she heard an ape speaking through the device.

"Operator."

"Hello, could you get me Buckingham Palace 8638?"

"Connecting you now, madam."

A few moments later, Vastra heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS phone ringing for attention, before a few moments later the doctor answered.

"What?"

"Doctor, it's Vastra. Jenny's has an accident in prison. I want to get her checked out at a suitable facility, rather than in the prison hospital."

"What happened?"

"Apparently, she slipped and fell while on the wheel, and one of her manacles got caught briefly. They think she's broken her ankle."

"You did fill in those forms I gave you last time, right?"

"Yes. I gave them to Clara when she was here, just after you regenerated."

"Okay, that means you are registered with her GP. I'll be along in a few minutes."

A few long minutes later, spent gently stroking her ape's forehead with a tender hand, eliciting a very weak smile in response, Vastra heard the familiar tearing groan of the TARDIS as it dropped into the infirmary, before the Doctor stepped through.

"How did that get in here?" The prison doctor asked.

"It's an experimental project I'm testing." The Doctor replied, before unleashing the eyebrows on the unfortunate doctor. "Now get out of the way and let me see to the patient."

The human scuttled aside, before the Doctor marched forwards, taking a look at Jenny.

"This isn't good." He muttered. "You were right, Vastra. She needs medical attention. Fortunately, I have the best ambulance in the universe."

Gently, the Doctor took one side of Jenny, while Vastra took the other, and they helped her out of bed, taking nearly all of her weight, before the Doctor wiped a cloth soaked in spirits over her forehead, removing the M.

"We'll explain she's had morphine." He said, at Vastra's surprised glance. "That method isn't used when she's going, and it'd raise a few questions about where she was treated previously. Her medical history is bad enough there as it is. Our best bet would be to present her as having come from very eastern Europe, but she's got an east end accent that stands out a mile." He

Frustrated, he pulled the activation lever, setting the TARDIS for the 21st century.

Once it was traveling, he turned to Vastra.

"You know your way around. You'll need to ask the clothes machine for a burka, I think. It's the most concealing garment available in the period we're travelling to, and there are enough of them it won't cause any offense or raise questions."

Without hesitation, she headed off, leaving her ape in the Time Lord's care.

The clothing room looked different, compared to when Clara had been using it. It felt and smelt like the air inside one of the caves her people had stored garments and other essentials in. The computer terminal was in the correct place, much to her pleasure, and the keyboard layout and font were exactly as she remembered them.

"Burka, 21st century, European." She typed in, being extremely specific as a learnt precaution. She'd received garments in the past that had been decidedly incorrect. The first time she'd asked for a leather jerkin, she'd received an example that was ridiculous, and would never have stopped a bladed weapon strike. And then there'd been the fiasco with the scotch bonnet. She'd been given a chilli pepper costume instead of a late Victorian head covering.

She received a huge garment made from black cotton, with enough warmth to keep out a chill, and that completely covered her body, making it clear only that she was humanoid and probably female. The TARDIS had thoughtfully included a slightly domed cap for her head, which removed any visual evidence of her crests, although it would look decidedly odd if she removed the garment.

Then she found out the next problem.

It was hard to walk in. Her first few steps caused more issues than Victorian clothing had managed to, thanks to the sheer volume of material that was available for things to get caught in. At one point, she even snagged a dewclaw in the fabric, although she was able to extract it without effort, simply lifting it away, before tucking it and its twin on the opposite leg tight against her skin. It took her about fifteen minutes to get used to walking in it, and she resented the trouble it was causing.

Then she heard the Doctor call, and she headed back into the control room, setting the veil on her head as she did so, before nearly walking into a wall from how much it restricted her vision. Interestingly, there was a layer of fabric that was easy to see through, but completely concealed her face, eliminating any chance of someone ending up calling the police after seeing an alien in the waiting room.

 

* * *

 

The TARDIS dropped them in the car park of a fairly typical hospital, much to the confusion of several humans, who quickly noticed the rather unusual sight that had appeared in their midst. Vaguely, he remembered how Clara had dealt with materialising the TARDIS in London, and grabbed Vastra's disregarded hat, which was practically replaced by her alternate garb.

"Thank you, thank you." He said, relying on the fact his oddball clothing selections would reinforce the image of a conjurer or other street performer carrying out some form of illusion. He waved the hat under the noses of the humans, collecting a surprising amount of small change, before stashing it in one of his pockets.

"We take off tomorrow." He told them, before Vastra lugged Jenny, who he realised was still dressed in her Victorian prison uniform, out of the box, and over to the pedestrian entrance to A&E.

Inside, the two of them queued up for the counter, looking somewhat out of place in a room filled with a mixture of screaming toddlers, drunken adult males in packs, and a number of old people, who Vastra privately suspected to be playing medication top trumps. Santa had given her a pack of top trumps for Christmas, which had contained a huge variety of dinosaurs, some of which she'd even encountered, which increased her surprise at the comparatively accurate reconstructions, although they'd got some of the patterns or tones off. She remembered one species of duckbill dinosaur as having been patterned like a giraffe, while it was presented as one colour on the card.

The receptionist was slightly worrying.

"Why are you here?" She asked, trying to sound helpful, but quite possibly frustrated by the mass of rowdy drunks taking up most of the room.

"My wife has had a fall." She explained. "We've spent time aboard lately, and she broke her ankle while we were hiking in Macedonia." Vastra said. "They put a cast on it over there, and we spent the rest of our holiday in our apartment." Vastra lied, taking advantage of her veil.

"Would you mind taking that off?" The nurse asked. "It makes things easier if we're not separated like this."

"I'm afraid I can't." Vastra replied, glancing over her shoulder. "I have an unusual skin condition, and I find wearing this helps me get around."

"They're a pain." The nurse sympathized. "So you're not actually..."

"No." Vastra replied.

"What are the symptoms you've brought your wife in with?"

"Drowsiness, General lethargy and a possible chest infection." Vastra replied. "She had an opiate based painkiller I'm prescribed for her leg, so she can't have any morphine."

The nurse just looked resigned. "I've noted it. Go and find a seat, and I'll get you seen as soon as possible." The Doctor helped Jenny over to one of the utilitarian bench seats, before Vastra headed over to confront one group of males.

"Piss off." One of them threw at her, as she approached. "We don't want any bloody terrorists around us."

Vastra's reply was surprisingly courteous. "If you don't sit down and shut up, things will get terrifying."

"Fuck you." The ape swore, before swinging a slow, telegraphed, punch.

Vastra replied with a textbook arm lock, taking full advantage of her speed and training, before just gently pushing upwards.

"If I take this another five degrees or so, the current degree of pain will seem minor." She said, in a voice layered with honey. "Ten degrees should be enough to dislocate it, but as you are in a hospital, that won't be anything to worry about." She continued, grinning behind the veil. "You'd have full use of your arm again in about three months."

The ape shut up, as did all of his pack mates.

Vastra walked back across a surprisingly quiet waiting room, before taking a seat next to Jenny. The young human looked even worse under electric lighting, which threw into stark detail her slightly sunken eyes, and slightly discoloured skin.

Perhaps twenty remarkably quiet minutes later, which Vastra had passed just stroking Jenny's forehead, and having to remember that her tongue was decidedly unwelcome in public, they were surprised when a triage nurse arrived.

"If you'd like to follow me." She said, before providing an elbow to assist Jenny as Vastra heaved the human girl to her feet, the cast clattering audibly on the floor with every step. She seemed surprised by how dense the small human was, and by her comparatively petite frame.

Inside the same triage room, Jenny was laid carefully on the trolley, before the nurse gave her a careful head to toe examination.

"When did you last visit your GP?" she asked, after a moment, looking somewhat confused.

Vastra glanced at the Doctor, who looked straight back at her.

"I see." The nurse commented.

"Well, starting at her ankles, I would like an explanation of these." The nurse said, running a finger around something that Vastra had to lean in to see. At close range, she was able to observe signs of bruising, which formed bands around the young ape's pale skin.

"We're historical reenactors." The Doctor quickly explained. "We did an event at a Victorian life event a few days ago, as part of which Jenny played the role of a female prisoner."

The grunt he got in response was somewhat sceptical.

"Further up the leg, her calves are slightly curved inwards. I haven't seen this in person before now, but this looks very indicative of childhood rickets. Moving further up the body, her stomach is firmer than expected, even for someone with her level of muscle. I would have to do some scans to identify the cause of that. Further up still, she shows a surprising amount of scar tissue, most of which can only be described as indicative of participation in combat, using a bladed article, against others using a bladed article. Then we come to her hands, which appear to have done an awful lot of work, in addition to what appear to be scars from bladed articles."

Vastra reluctantly looked down at her feet. 

"Overall, I'd like you to answer a few questions, young lady." She said to Jenny.

"I cin do 'at." She said weakly.

"First, where exactly were you born?"

"Down Billin'sgate way."

"What is your current employment?"

"Lady's maid a'…"

The nurse turned around and gave both the Doctor and Vastra an extremely challenging look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I think they are in a spot of bother here.


	33. Chapter 33

The Doctor sat there for a moment, before producing a small leather wallet from somewhere in his coat.

"John Smith, UNIT. The girl and her wife are with me." He told the startled nurse, flashing the contents, which included the latest photograph he'd been able to extract from one of the human photograph kiosks that seemed to be liberally distributed around larger food shops. He also held out a business card.

"There's a number on the card. Or you can find a number for yourself, I don't really care." He told her, handing it over.

Reluctantly, she dialled the number on the card, and spoke to someone at the other end, before looking up and describing his appearance and manner.

Then Vastra, for reasons best known to the Silurian, decided to take her veil off with a hiss reminiscent of a boiler venting steam.

The nurse turned white.

"She's from a species known as Homo reptilia, or as Silurians, from before current recorded history. Normally, she lives in Victorian London. She is perfectly friendly, and would like you to treat her wife."

"E..." The nurse said, before seemingly plucking up some courage.

"Would you kindly get out of my light, Madam?" She asked.

Vastra gave her a look, before getting back to the important business at hand, namely nuzzling Jenny and crooning to her.

"Vastra, let the human do her thing. She knows what she's doing."

Reluctantly, the Silurian backed away, before allowing the nurse access to Jenny. The woman knelt over the smaller human, before conducting a more detailed head to toe than her first assessment.

"Jenny, I'm going to have to examine your ankle now." She told the smaller human after perhaps five minutes of careful examination, her voice very tender. "I'll have to cut the cast off first, and It'll hurt a bit, and then I'll know if you need an X-Ray or not."

"Uh." Jenny groaned." If you 'ave t'." It was the first coherent sentence she'd managed to produce since entering the examination bay.

Vastra winced as the woman powered up a small circular cutter, which made a most irritating noise as it sheered through the gypsum plaster, before the layers of plaster were peeled away, allowing Vastra her first look at the actual injury. The ankle was swollen and bruised, and she could see the sudden strain in her little ape's body as the cast was pulled away.

Gently, the nurse probed Jenny's ankle, eliciting a series of groans from Jenny, each of which caused a highly protective Vastra to briefly glare at the woman, before finally stepping over and enveloping her wife's hand between both of her larger, scaly hands, and allowing the soft, cool scales on her palms to press against Jenny's, giving the small ape something to focus on other than the continued pain in her ankle.

"Were you two playing some kind of bondage game or something when she fell?" The nurse asked, curiously. "I can't think exactly where those injures could have come from otherwise. Still, I understand why you wanted a better equipped hospital to take a look at these."

Vastra briefly looked away, the scales on her face turning darker in what could only be described as an embarrassed blush.

The nurse just rolled her eyes slightly, before looking up at the Doctor again.

"Her ankle is too bruised for me to be able to tell if she's broken anything. I'll need to send her through to X-ray to get a definitive answer."

"What exactly is an X-Ray?" Vastra asked, curiously.

"We use a machine that generates X-Ray radiation, and expose a photographic plate with the limb placed between the plate and the source."

Vastra's tongue flicked out briefly, in alarm. "You want to irradiate her?"

"The level of exposure isn't very great. No more than a few milliards."

The Doctor said something briefly in Silurian, and Vastra replied in the same language, before glaring suspiciously at the nurse.

"Miss, let 'er." Jenny groaned, turning slightly paler than before. "She aten't goin' to 'urt me more'n my leg does."

She's lapsing into street-ape. Vastra realised with a wince. The last time she did that was when she fell off the roof while fixing that damned chimney. I didn't understand half the words she used while she was hanging from her ape climbing harness, so I guess it must have been. And it wasn't my fault the ladder was too short. She thought, grinning. The fire apes had to come and rescue her, not to mention the sleet, which I believe is what the apes call frozen water crystals that don't settle on anything. She grinned slightly at the image of her wife, wearing a pair of trousers, and dangling from a climbing harness that left her suspended about twenty feet above Paternoster Row, and most of a metre away from the wall, with a rope too damp to get a grip on, even in work gloves. She had been forced to dodge several masonry repair tools as a reward for standing there making a sissing noise. To be fair, Jenny hadn't thrown them very hard, or particularly aimed them at her.

In the end, they'd been forced to summon a wagon about twenty feet long, with what at first looked like a wooden ladder laid along the top. It had been swiftly and carefully rotated until it was pointed slightly below Jenny, and then the rattle of a chain on gears had driven Vastra backwards as the ladder was slowly extended under her wife, at which point, one of the fire apes gallantly clambered up the ladder, holding a short boathook, which he used to snare the line and haul Jenny onto the ladder, taking a firm grip on her harness before allowing her to untie herself, then pulling her onto the ladder in a single move that had brought applause from the inevitable audience of costermongers, tinkers, shop keepers and passers-by that seemed, by some inevitable law of the universe, to congregate wherever there was something interesting, or possibly something was about to happen.

Reluctantly, Vastra glanced at the human woman before nodding.

"I will be allowed to accompany my wife?" She asked.

"Not into the room itself," the nurse began, at which point Vastra started bristling again. "It's NHS policy. We aren't allowed to have anyone who isn't behind a screen in the room with an X-Ray machine. You'll be as close to her as we are." She nervously reassured the Silurian.

A few moments later, the nurse pressed a small control on her desk, before speaking into a small grill. Shortly afterwards, another human, wearing a similar uniform, came into the room, and placed his feet briefly on two pedals at the base of the gurney Jenny was lying on, allowing him to push it through the door of the triage bay and into the main corridor, Vastra following close behind once wearing her veil and skullcap.

Jenny's eyes were like saucers as she rolled through the building, which was lit with massive numbers of electric lights far brighter than anything she'd seen at home, even when Vastra took her to lectures with a stern look on her face, or to watch everyone else watching a play in the west end, although the habitual pause at a fish and chip shop was also one of the silurian's objectives, she guessed. The last tough to attempt the mugging of an old widow and her small vulnerable maid had ended up as the main course for Vastra' s dinner, along with a plum compote and something Jenny had found down at the docks while exploring, called dolmardes, which appeared to be vine leaves, judging by the flavour, somewhat reminiscent of wine, at least according to silurian taste buds.

The rapid sequence of glowing tubes overhead quickly hypnotised Jenny as they swept past, pulsing in her somewhat muzzy mind, already lifted slightly out of her body by the dose of morphine she'd received an hour before, which had been the maximum safe dose for her body size, and had dulled her pain enough she'd been able to drowse. Now, with the flicker of fluorescent tube lights overhead, her muzzy-headedness very quickly became stupor, as the floor and movement of the trolley were smooth enough that there was no random noise to prevent her from sleeping.

She was brought sharply awake when she felt her injured leg being slowly lifted, before it was let back down and she could feel a rough, rubber surface, almost like the device she used when attempting to remove most of the evidence of one of Vastra's impromptu luncheons. She groaned slightly, before the person standing next to her retreated, and there was a brief noise like the shutter of one of the oversized cameras that the police were beginning to use to record crime scenes.

Vastra had brought her a more or less portable model from America, although she'd also ended up buying the materials to transform one of the disused garrets in the attic into a darkroom, which she was very happy to use in developing prints. She'd been banned from the room by Jenny after they ran out of stop bath for the second time in a week.

It took perhaps a few seconds for the X-ray itself to be retrieved and developed, before then being attached to an illuminated board. Jenny would have taken a large amount of interest, but she had fallen asleep almost as soon as the print was removed from under her leg.

The X-ray technician examined the injury carefully, before turning to Vastra and the Doctor. "Her ankle is not actually fractured visibly on the X-ray, although I cannot rule out a hairline fracture from her pain level. Ideally, I'd like to be allowed to admit her overnight so we can manage her pain levels and prevent further damage."

Vastra looked sceptical.

"Look, we've travelled a fair distance to have her checked out. Is there anything that you can do that would make it safe and practical to discharge her today?" The Doctor asked.

"Not that would be both."

Vastra looked at her small ape, noticing that almost unconsciously she'd slipped into the very defensive posture she'd slept in when Vastra first found her, curled up on her side, forming a slight arch with her body to protect her valuables, and oriented towards the nearest wall.

"I'll allow her to stay in overnight." Vastra said, before giving the Doctor a look. "I require directions to a sweetshop, and ideally a restaurant that serves steak with all the trimmings."

"I can find you a list, Madame." The technician replied, turning towards his computer just long enough for Vastra to take several quick steps across the room and begin examining her wife, before carefully tasting the air she was exhaling.

The technician was unlucky enough to turn around before the prehensile tongue had withdrawn.

"What the fuck?" He yelled. "What... What the hell is she?"

"I am a lizard woman from the dawn of time, here to accompany my wife to hospital." Vastra replied indignantly. "I have not harmed you or any of yours, so you should have no quarrel with me."

With a slightly resigned look on his face, the Doctor just showed his UNIT ID again, before the porter arrived, and transferred Jenny onto a ward.


	34. Chapter 34

It almost felt normal to listen for carriages, rather than minicabs and unmarked white vans when crossing the road, Clara mused, with a slight smile. A careful glance, confirming what her ears were telling her, and she watched a two wheel hansom cab roll past her, before allowing a pair of what looked like members of the middle class to disembark, the woman holding a brightly coloured parasol, despite the weather and time of year. The cabbie accepted the fare, in a cheerful cockney accent, before trotting a few yards down the road, and being hailed almost immediately by a man wearing the bowler and frock coat that marked a member of the financial community, and disappearing swiftly in the direction of the square mile.

Keeping a careful eye, and an even more sensitive ear, out for traffic, she crossed the road, passing outside a small local licensed establishment, with a sign over the door identifying it as the Pig and Hound. Vastra had indicated that she maintained a bar tab there, which she cleared once a month.

Getting a drink in a Victorian public house, a group of premises well known for their hygiene standards, or rather lack of them, wasn't on her agenda, however, and she walked past with barely a sideways glance at the woman sweeping the floor, or the man hauling empty beer barrels out of the cellar by main force, and loading them onto a brewer's dray. It was a scene bizarrely similar to the publicans in the 21st century, only differing because they didn't have metal kegs and a van.

Another cross street, and again, she checked in both directions, before stepping out into the road, trotting slightly to avoid the omnibus she could see approaching at a trot, and was safely on the pavement on the far side of the road by the time it passed her.

Grinning slightly, she ably dodged a costermonger, before stepping around what appeared to be a small stall, carrying kitchen spices, although she suspected from the colours that the spices were likely to contain large amounts of sawdust as well as their official contents.

The butchers looked like something out of the living village at Ironbridge. A large bow window, with meat hanging inside the curve of the window, along with a simple sign with both the name of the shop, Elliot and Sons family butchers, and a separate section that simply showed a cleaver embedded in a side of meat. The window frame was painted a dull red, and what appeared to be very basic chainmail hung in the doorway, striped in red and white. The man behind the counter was facing away from the entryway, holding a meat cleaver that, to Clara, looked like something out of a low budget horror movie, with a slightly pitted blade a full twelve inches long. He was peddling with one foot, and holding the blade against a grindstone, carefully angling it to return the cutting edge to an almost mirror finish. His blue and white apron showed dozens of marks, which had in places changed the colour from blue and white to dark brown and lighter brown.

After a few moments, he seemed to notice someone was in the shop and turned around.

"What can I do for you today, miss?" He asked, with a more refined accent than Clara expected.

"Madame Vastra sent me to collect her weekly order."

"Where's Jenny?" He asked, sounding very suspicious. "This isn't the first time someone's tried to get away with nabbing the order belonging to the most reliable customer this side of Whitechapel."

"She gave me this note. She sealed it before handing it to me, and contains information that would be something only she would know about." The man took the note, which was secured inside two envelopes, both with an old fashioned wax seal, before folding it open, nodding, and chuckling slightly.

"That makes me certain it's from the old lizard." He said. "Her version of a joke message is very distinctive."

He pocketed the missive, before spending the next several minutes bustling around the shop, wrapping an assortment of meat products in several layers of white paper packaging.

"According to her ladyship, Jenny has managed to get herself locked up." He said, chuckling. "Guess she still has a few secrets, even from Vastra."

"What sort of thing?" She asked, only for the man to tap his nose twice.

"Not my place to tell you about that." He said, fairly sternly. "She'd take my head off with my own cleaver if she found out I'd said anything. She has one hell of a temper when roused." He grinned. "The first one who suggested she should enter into a business arrangement, shall we say, had his gentleman's area kicked so hard they nearly came out of his ears."

Clara grinned slightly, remembering her several encounters with the small maidservant, including the incident where she had arrived via a form of fast-roping armed with a katana. She could imagine her reacting to someone suggesting that she should become a working girl under his supervision with extreme prejudice.

"After that, they left her alone, until the tong moved in and tried main force. She seemed to pick up Vastra around that time, or it might have been the other way around."

As he had been speaking, a mound of items had been piling up in a basket, until it was full.

"Nine shillings and sixpence." He said.

Opening the small purse Vastra had handed her several days earlier, she realised that although it contained a large number of coins, it didn't contain more than three actual shillings. Remembering something about pre-decimal currency, she dived into the purse, before checking the face of one of the coins to be sure. With a look of assurance, she handed over two crowns The man nodded slightly, before dropping the coins into the till, and scooping out a tiny silver sixpence, which he handed to her with a nod, before she scooped up the basket.

"I'll send the boy around for it in about three hours." He said, before she headed out of the store and turned back towards Paternoster row.

* * *

"Can I see the menu?" Vastra asked, looking at the young waiter from behind the veil the Doctor had insisted on her wearing before she left the X-Ray room.

In response, a laminated two-sided sheet was placed on the table. "Can I get you any drinks?" He asked.

"Vodka martini." She said, grinning impishly under her veil, or at least grinning in the way an imp would grin if it had enough sharp teeth to intimidate a dentist used to working on sharks. "Shaken, not stirred."

She was amused to see what appeared to be a very subtle eye roll, before he said, aloud, at least; "I'll get that for you."

While the boy was acquiring the drink, which she'd taken an extreme liking to during her blue box days, to the extent of having been found draped over the food synthesizer surrounded by a small mound of glasses, with a small, amusing and brightly coloured paper umbrella protruding from one earhole. Her stomach had been revealed to contain seven more by a scan the Doctor had carried out as a precaution, although they had been contained by the system that protected her stomach wall from bone fragments, Vastra was busily pursing the menu, searching for the largest and hopefully highest quality option on the menu, before settling on an eighteen ounce sirloin steak with every single form of trimming known to the restaurant industry. This included a fried egg, onion rings, fries, BBQ sauce (something she couldn't ever find at home), mushrooms, and bacon.

It was also about twenty quid. That said, it was the Doctor's money, rather than her own. Mentally, and thinking in terms of the ape money she was used to, after more than a decade living among them, she equated it to about twenty shillings.

Her martini arrived, and quickly vanished beneath her veil, allowing her tongue to access the contents of the glass. Cold. Far colder than anything Jenny can produce without putting it in the icebox. Very smooth flavours. Berries... bit of cinnamon, although it only tastes like cinnamon. Without hesitation, she wrapped her tongue around one of the ice cubes floating in her drink, and pulled it into her mouth, tucking it between her still somewhat carnivorous molars and pressing down, feeling the cold powder and liquid spread through her mouth as it melted, although the heat was sluggish to return, even sitting next to the radiator. Absently, her tongue dipped back into her glass, and siphoned about fifteen millilitres of fluid into her mouth, before swirling it over the taste receptors. The process continued until she had an empty glass, by which point her meal was being placed on the table.

Then she hissed at herself. You daft, gluttonous lizard. She thought, without realising for an instant it sounded more like Jenny than her own voice. You've ordered something you can't eat under your veil, and now you've got a choice between a police cell for being odd in public, and having to pick at your food.

She thought for a few seconds, before deciding to ask a question. "Is there a private room I can use? I've got a skin condition most people find disconcerting in a restaurant."

"I'll get the manager." The boy said, visibly and olfactorly content to boot it up the chain, where it would no longer be his problem to deal with, at least to someone with Vastra's ability to read body language and sense of smell.

It took the manager approximately three minutes to arrive, during which time several onion rings vanished under Vastra's veil, admittedly via an extremely high-speed tongue.

"I understand you need to use the private facilities." He said, in the slightly oily voice of a man angling for a gratuity, but without the skill to disguise it.

In response, Vastra simply replied; "Yes."

"Now obviously, this is at rather short notice…"

"And, if we cut to the chase, no, I am not going to bribe you."

The man's eyes bulged slightly, before he paled, noticing the fact that her voice, although at normal conversational volume, seemed to have been deliberately modulated to cut through the restaurant chatter and be audible for a considerable distance.

"More to the point, if I am not allowed to use the private room, which I will ensure stays clean, I will simply remove my veil." She said, bluntly. "This is likely to result in a loss of trade for your business."

"You have to understand… WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?" the man began, before yelling out as Vastra removed her veil.

"I am a lizard woman from the dawn of time. I am trying to eat my lunch. I do not believe that beer and cigarettes improve the flavour of ape, so I won't be having any dessert."

The manager just fled. With a brief glance upwards, Vastra got back to her meal, quickly ingesting the various high calorie and low nutritional value foods, before throwing a fifty pound note at the barman, and walking out, deeming herself to have successfully navigated the issue.

The police caught up with her halfway to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, keeping Vastra under control is almost impossible. This was one of them, as an author.


	35. Chapter 35

As the police car was about to drive past Vastra, she noticed one of the officers inside turn his head, before speaking into the radio briefly, then to the man driving, before the large lightbulb on top of the car came up, sending bands of revolving blue light around the suburban street.

"Excuse me, madam, but is it possible to have a chat with you briefly?" One of the officers asked, stepping out of the panda car.( _Why Is it called that, anyway? It isn't black and white, it doesn't eat bamboo, and it doesn't look anything like a panda._ ) "We've had a report of someone wearing similar clothing to yourself threatening you eat the manager of a pub nearby, and we just want to make sure it wasn't you before we continue."

"Certainly." Vastra said, trying to hope these police apes were as generally incompetent as the ones who paid her to solve their cases for them.

"Five nine, control. We're with a woman matching the description given, about eight hundred yards up the road from the pub. Are there any further details...?" The man still in the car said into the radio handset he was holding. "Ok. Scales, teeth like a velociraptor, blue eyes and a funny accent. We sure that the caller hasn't been smoking something a bit stronger than weed?" He said, almost chuckling. "CCTV from inside the pub confirms that description, and we're fairly sure it wasn't someone dressed up for the star trek convention or something? I see. I'll ask her." He said. "Madam, I know this is an ask, but I need to ask you to remove your veil."

"In front of a male stranger?" Vastra asked, using her knowledge of the period (mostly gleaned from books) to try and derail the attempt to identify her as the perpetrator of the incident in the pub.

"In that case, I'm going to have to detain you for the purposes of a search." He said. "I have to caution you that you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Furthermore, anything that you say may be taken down and given in evidence against you."

"Why are you arresting me?" She asked, trying to sound meek.

"You're not under arrest, although you have been cautioned. You are merely detained for the purpose of determining if you are of interest to our enquiries." She was old, before the officer began dealing into the radio. "This is car Five nine. We have a suspect detained on Shawcross street. We need a female officer and a van." He told the dispatcher.

Without it having been something she noticed, Vastra realised that if she tried to run, she'd have to bowl over both officers, regardless of the direction she chose to run in. It was a stratagem she hadn't expected.

Fortunately, the Doctor arrived before the second police car did.

"John Smith, UNIT." He growled, taking advantage of his height to tower over the two policemen in a dominance display. "This is one of our people. She isn't native to England, and she has a few unusual habits. I apologise for that." He said, trying to imitate the explainer UNIT had employed during that business with the portals and dinosaurs. "She tries not to be any trouble but her cultural traditions ("like eating apes." Vastra muttered very softly.) Are a tiny bit unusual." I apologise if she has caused any trouble."

"UNIT?" The constable said, slightly uncertainly. "We'll call it in as a code fifty one."

Neither Vastra nor the Doctor got the reference, but they smiled, nodded, and headed back towards the hospital at a fast walk.

"What exactly did you do?" The Doctor asked, slightly grumpily, once they were out of earshot of the two police officers.

"The manager was trying to get a gratuity for letting me eat in the snug, so I took my veil off, and commented on how he was unlikely to taste any good. Then I smiled at him, ate my food, and paid in cash on the way out."

"They've got Jenny on a rehydration drip, and her leg is in a padded sleeve that stops her moving it." The Doctor told her, grimly, with a slight catch that was common to all of the incarnations she'd met when someone who they cared about, no matter how secretly, was in danger. "They've got her on a course of antibiotics to clear up her chest."

They turned the corner, into the road leading to the hospital, using a footpath to avoid obstructing an ambulance or similar conveyance. "They've also given her a special meal, based on peanuts. It's designed to fatten her up a bit." Vastra sniffed slightly at the idea of her wife putting on weight. Anyone who saw her exercise routine when she was fit would understand why she was almost entirely lean. Except for certain areas, Vastra thought, with a smile that would have been considered lascivious by a Silurian, and a threat display by most modern lifeforms. Those areas were still very soft, compared to the rest of her wife, although the small human didn't use weights or anything that would result in camouflage-defeating muscle.

The smell as Vastra and the Doctor entered the hospital was a very typical smell for a place of healing run by those with a basic understanding of the germ theory of disease, something she couldn't find any information on at home, except in the most up-to-date scientific journals.

She had acquired a flask of anti-bacterial gel from the 23rd century, and had explained to Jenny why she should insist on it being used by a "doctor" examining either of them. She had then gone down to an instrument shop, and brought herself a high magnification microscope, which provided extremely clear images, to her considerable surprise, before taking a sample of water from the ornamental birdbath, which Jenny had prevented her from putting glue around to catch birds with. ("Ma'am, you ain't supposed t' eat them sort o' birds.")

Jenny had looked for several minutes at the collection of microorganisms swimming around in the water, before newspapering the Silurian around the head several times for "Usin' one o' t' best saucers for y' blinkin' demonstrat'n." Vastra had blinked at her, before wrestling her to the floor and inserting her tongue into the human's underwear, worming between layers of fabric to find what she was looking for, while pinning her ape to the ground in an expert hold. The human had tasted like anticipation almost as soon as the Silurian jumped on her, and she made sure that if Jenny really wanted to, she would be able to break the hold.

Rapist was not a word she ever wanted to apply to her.

The corridors were as brightly lit as they had been when the sun was down, and the Silurian simply trusted the doctor to navigate her to her little ape, occasionally chivvying Vastra away from vending machines containing foodstuffs. They also had panels to stop stray prehensile tongues from being able to access the stock through the brought product hatch.

Jenny, it turned out, had been given a small, private room, off of the specialist admissions ward, complete with whiteboard, which read: "Jenny Flint, UNIT patient, fully human, Victorian era."

"Doctor," Vastra said curiously. "Are they that knowledgeable about their staff that they feel comfortable advertising her origins?"

"I had to swipe a card to access this area." He said. "Humans are good at keeping things in, and out, of places like this. You wouldn't get those doors open with a battering ram, short of taking out the walls as well. You can go and visit her now."

Vastra darted through the doors into the room containing her wife without a word.

Inside, Jenny was curled up in a large bed, with her left arm apparently secured to the bed through a wide cuff, which had wires coming out of it and connecting her to a bank of machinery.

"Don't mind It, ma'am." Jenny told her, noticing the very slightest signs of an angry Vastra. "'It's not locked or nothing. I can take me 'and out whenever I wants t'. Just ticks off the nurse, is all."

"How are you feeling?" Vastra asked.

"Fair 'nough." Jenny tried to claim. "I can't stay 'ere for too long, or I'll be in a right fine state."

The fact that her eyes had sunken into her skull slightly gave her away. She clearly hadn't been given enough food, and her lips were slightly papery looking, which Vastra knew from her care manual to be a sign of prolonged minor dehydration of an ape.

Giving the little monkey a look that suggested that Jenny was going to stay in bed until she was well, Vastra padded over to a small device standing on the floor, before pressing a cup under the tube, and extracting a cup of water that seemed neither hot nor cold when she dipped her finger into it.

She placed it on the little table next to her ape, before spotting the fact that her legs were both contained in some form of splint, and that those were secured to the bed.

"You daft ol' lizard, those are to keep me from movin' 'em around an' 'urting meself. They ain't intended to attach me t' the bliming bed." Jenny yelled at her, seeing the expression on her face. "They're a bleeding sight more comfortable than your selection for holdin' me in this sort o' position, though."

Vastra turned a mottled orange briefly. The stocks she had hauled up several flights of stairs had enjoyed a very significant lack of success when she'd fastened them around her wife's legs, using a metal tie to hold them shut, in an attempt to ensure the human got treated to breakfast in bed.

To be fair, it wasn't entirely her fault that the stove had decided that it was not going to light when fuelled, or that the chimney had picked that day to dump a bag of soot over her when she forced the window pole up to search for blockages. In the end, she'd been forced to release her wife, simply because she had managed to set fire to the coal bucket. Jenny had pointedly not berated her, simply helping to remove the bucket from the kitchen and leave it in the coach yard until it had run out of fuel.

Afterwards, the wooden bars had vanished, presumably into the wood store, Vastra guessed, after seeing several thing lengths of wood with one or two curved ends, on a radius that suggested they were chunks from the stocks, in the kindling buckets.

Neither of them had discussed the matter since.

Vastra just gave the small human a look, suggesting that she regretted the whole incident more than Jenny would ever give her credit for. Jenny replied with another look that seemed to simply raise its eyebrow sceptically, but without speaking.

"How are you feeling, love?" Vastra asked, after a moment.

"All the better for seein' you again, miss." Jenny replied. "I tell you, though, I ain't gonna get bored any time soon. All o' these films on the screen, I can access parts of the internet, though nothing relevant to the time period back home." The small human seemed to bounce as she sat up slightly, turning the screen around to show the Silurian what was currently on it.

On screen, what looked like some sort of giant green human, bulging with muscles in a way that was anatomically impossible, was picking up what appeared to be a fully manned armoured vehicle, before throwing it at another tank, causing both to explode. A soldier, she assumed, from the light coloured patterned garments and helmet he was wearing, was punched through a wall, before the giant swung what looked like a lamppost at another group of soldiers.

"Humans." Vastra muttered. "They like their fight scenes, don't they?"

"It's fun to watch." Jenny said.

"Am I in any danger of losing your interest at night?" Vastra replied.

"Not my type, ma'am." She said. "Too male, even if those muscles are something."

Vastra had not been exactly unappreciative of the muscles herself, and so she only gave Jenny a level look, before gently kissing her forehead.

"Jenny, I'm sorry to leave you like this, but I need to go and explain where you have gone, and check on Clara."

"I know." Jenny said. "Behave. Don't eat anyone, and don't you dare try anything with Clara."

"I like my teeth where they are." Vastra said, in a slightly miffed voice. "Clara has made it quite clear that she does not share my tastes in companionship."

Jenny just grinned, before Vastra made her exit, unsurprised to find the blue box waiting in the corridor, in what looked to her suspiciously like a purpose built nook for the blue box. It even had several stencils suggesting what the writer thought about humans who tried to fiddle with his box when he wasn't there to defend it.

Inside, the Doctor was standing next to his console, clearly waiting impatiently, as he pulled the lever once she was through the door.

"Anything changed?" He asked.

"Bedrest, I think." Vastra said, slightly regretting her role in sentencing her little ape to hard labour. "She looks exhausted."

"Hard labour tends to do that to people." The Doctor said, reprovingly. "I never let any of my companions end up doing it, unless I was alongside them and there was no other option."

"I wanted her punished." Vastra almost keened. "I wanted to remind her that her training wasn't a toy, or something to abuse. I didn't want her to end up… like that."

"Vastra, something I have learnt is that every action has consequences. Giving her a ride to a modern hospital means that we will have to explain her absence, and avoid her being looked for. Ensuring that your own wife was sentenced to hard labour… we'll see what she makes of you when she is out of hospital."

Vastra looked uncomfortably at the Doctor, before hurrying to the wardrobe room, and clambering back into her familiar dress, before settling the specially adapted hat onto her head. Jenny had ordered her a hat with a more or less oval shoulder, carefully measured so that her lobes would fit cleanly inside the hat, and draw a minimum of attention. There was also a slightly fill underneath the crown, so that it would contact more than her central lobe at the top.

Before she stepped out into the prison hospital again, Vastra checked her clothing. Her veil was the only thing out of place, and she quickly and carefully draped that over her face, before the box finally came to a stop, and they disembarked into the hospital.


	36. Chapter 36

According to the clock, Vastra had been away for perhaps three hours, when the TARDIS groaned back into the medical wing of Newgate prison, setting down neatly between two unoccupied beds.

The prison doctor, along with one of the warders, hurried up to the box, only to look concerned and very unhappy when only Vastra and The Doctor exited it.

"Where is Miss Flint?" The prison "doctor" asked, looking baffled. "And how did that thing get in and out of the building?"

"Jenny is in a reliable and extremely reputable hospital." Vastra told them, trying to sound reassuring, one dewclaw gently massaging the inside of her leg. "She is in traction, and cannot leave the bed, or the wing of the hospital." She did not mention that her wife was currently working her way through the last decade of Marvel superhero films. It wouldn't mean anything to them, and it would distract from the fact her wife was being punished.

Vastra had left the nurse with strict instructions, placed on the door, that her wife was not allowed a full English breakfast, but was restricted to muesli without any form of candied fruit or raisins. It was a somewhat unorthodox punishment, but it would bite home, she suspected.

"Is she guarded?" The warder asked. Vastra knew the man's scent, but remembering names was Jenny's job, along with tea making.

"She is in a special section of the hospital, in a guarded wing. She is also unable to leave the bed." Vastra said. "She will not be absconding from her confinement."

There was a gruff nod, accompanied by a grunt. Vastra translated it as the male ape for "Good to know, thanks for telling me."

She nodded, slightly imperiously. "Warder, could you return me to the entrance?" She asked. "I need to return home. I have several cases on the go, and I must continue my enquiries."

"Certainly, Madame." The Warder said, unlocking the door with one of a number of keys attached onto his belt, then leading her through.

Vastra knew that Jenny hated being inside a prison, however briefly. It was the combination of silence and harsh sounds that intimidated her, an effect which the Silurian suspected to have been deliberately engineered. Having apes frightened of being confined was at least something of a deterrent. She had never seen any signs that the apes of the current period were even attempting to rehabilitate, rather than simply punish those who broke the rules of their society. It was a regressive approach, but she suspected that it was extremely effective against those such as Jenny, who sinned once, and were terrified back onto the straight and narrow.

For Vastra, being inside a prison was physically uncomfortable, rather than psychologically. The constant damp, a lack of natural light, the smell of hundreds of apes without access to bars of soap... It was a maddening environment. She had nothing but sympathy for her ape, absinthe fact that she suffered quiet nightmares the night after entering a prison.

It had become her normal practice not to require Jenny to enter the building, or to do anything more than wait in the carriage with a romance novel, usually featuring knights in armour. Jenny always passed the books on to her with annotations correcting the sword fighting sequences, particularly in regards to ridiculous attempts at defence or attack.

Vastra had taught her that in a fight with a sword, you inserted it into a vital site on your opponent, then withdrew it and stepped back to let them die. You did not fight to disarm, or to score a touch (unless you were fighting a formal duel). The only purpose of her weapon was to kill. It was not to have poetry dedicated to it, or to look good on parade. It was a thirty inch single edged, chisel-tip katana, designed to kill people. It was a tool. Not a toy, and very definitely not an item to be joked around with. Using it to chop wood, or the accompanying tanto to fillet a chicken, however, was very much in keeping with the rules. Vastra saw no reason why it would be any sort of issue. One of the spare tantos being converted into a breadknife, using a file, had been a high skill project, and something Vastra had encouraged.

Thinking about her little ape, currently about one hundred and ten years away, and about fifteen miles to the east, made Vastra snuffle slightly as she exited the prison, before the Warder accompanying her hailed a four wheeler cab, which she gratefully clambered into, closing the door behind her, reassured she would be protected from the massive number of smells she was likely to encounter.

* * *

When the lunch trolley came around, Jenny was very surprised when she was handed a plate of what appeared to be a full English breakfast, complete with hash browns, baked beans, fried onions and mushrooms, along with a supply of bacon and sausages. There were also three slices of toast.

It took her about fifteen minutes to ingest the entire plateful, going carefully over the plate with a slice of toast, scooping the mixture of jus and sauce into a puddle, then carefully absorbing it, before rolling her slice of toast into a tube, with jus on the inside, and carefully eating it. The instinct of a match-girl momentarily warred with her knowledge that withholding of any future food was extremely unlikely, and she was sans over-large cap with most of her hair tucked into it anyway.

Once the final slice of toast had been ingested, having first been slathered with peanut butter, from a special packet provided by the hospital, Jenny fired up her internet connection, determined to access racing information for the 1895 season. Being able to drop a few hundred guineas on a hundred to one shot was something she aspired to, without a doubt, as even with Vastra's earnings from cases, and her own private income, the Row was an expensive house for a Silurian, her human wife, and their very trigger-happy sontaran butler, to live in. Jenny was not going to have lodgers in the same building as her avowed humanitarian of a wife. The other option was trying to bring in additional staff Vastra wouldn't try to eat, or to simply raise her fee somewhat.

 

* * *

 

When Vastra got back to the Row, she clambered out of the four wheeler, paying the driver with the correct change, before heading for the steps.

To her surprise, a small ape, wearing a straw hat with a blue and white ribbon, was waiting on her steps.

"Alan?" She said, hopefully, noticing the way he reacted when she got his name right. "Why are you waiting out here?"

"M' dad sent me 'round to get 'is baskit back. I've been on the step, knockin' on the door, for the last two hours."

Vastra spent a moment translating the statement out of street ape. "I'll let you and myself in so that we can look for Clara together." She said, carefully concealing that she was taking advantage of her slightly over-large sleeve to palm a tanto.

Carefully, she unlocked the door, before stepping quickly inside, relieved when nothing immediately attacked her, before gesturing to the boy to follow her though the door.

Once the door was closed, she took a deep breath.

Inside a building, she would expect most smells to linger, particularly if she was looking for the particular set of aromas that she currently was.

To her relief, there was no explosion of adrenaline, or the smell of a human fight.

Then she realised that the smells of her current maid were about four hours old.

"Clara?" She called, feeling her gut suddenly contracting with fear.

There was no answer.


	37. Chapter 37

As Constable Starkly took a turn along New Compton Street, he scanned the rows of washing, both out of habit, and because he received an extra guinea in his pay-packet every month for doing so, along this particular stretch of road.

For the last year and a half, there had been no sign of any of the messages he had been charged to watch out for, aside from the occasional signal to indicate Vastra had left London, and to indicate she had returned.

This time, outside the property he was charged with paying particular attention to, there was a row of items he had committed to memory. A green ladies bonnet had a lace doily held against the rim by a clothespin. Next to it, he saw, was a blue checked skirt and a ladies shawl, striped blue, white, red, white, blue. Then there was a final item of information: a priest's gown.

Without even changing his pace, he strolled off in the direction of St. Giles' in the fields.

* * *

Vastra had been unable to sleep the previous night, and had resorted, with some difficulty, to meditating, simply to try and get some rest, knowing she would need her wits sharp during the morning.

At first light, she exited, noticing a different loafer detach himself from a doorway, and very unobtrusively begin tailing her, in a way that most well-bred ladies, particularly those almost terrified for a daughter or companion, would never have suspected at all.

Rather than giving anything away, she turned into Sherwin and Soames bank, before requesting to see the manager.

A few minutes later, she was shown into his office.

"Madame." He greeted her, warmly, as any manager would greet a customer who lived around the corner, and had something approximating a quarter of a million pounds in his vault, mostly in paper notes.

"Jeffery." She replied. "I need to take some money out." She was watching his face carefully as he said it, although his surprise looked, and smelled, entirely genuine. "I need about three hundred sovereigns."

The manager looked at her, and she could see the gears working, before he came to the conclusion that a customer with that balance could afford to remove a third of her stock of gold sovereigns.

"I'll instruct one of the porters to bring them up for you, Madame." He said. "Would you like an escort home?"

"I think my reputation would remain intact if someone like Alf or Pete were to walk me home. I wouldn't want to be carrying such a large sum through the streets with me without someone to ensure I arrive home with it.

It took the bank about ten minutes to unlock the vault, and perhaps a further fifteen to count, package, and sign over the money, which was packed into a valise case she had brought with her, each coin wrapped in a scrap of fabric to eliminate the noise from them.

When she got to the door, one of the porters, a man she recognised as part of the security arrangement, was waiting for her, with his coat drawn back, allowing her to see the single action .45 calibre revolver seated in a leather holster under his jacket, attached to his waist. Even for Vastra, an Ninth Chakim Black belt in an art similar to Krav Maga and Systema, although she knew neither was going to be invented for another sixty or so years, it was a reassuring sight.

As it turned out, the return trip passed entirely without incident, although she knew the porter had spotted the tail about ten metres after they left the bank, judging by the quick series of hand signals he passed to two of the local constables, who quickly moved in on the man.

She knew that there would have been a tail on the tail, who would likely have seen that it was the guard who alerted the police, not the demure, entirely unaware widow walking next to him.

When she got back, the London post system had been its usual efficient self. There were a number of messages for her, one of which was a card, contained within an envelope.

"Tonight, at about ten, visit the King's Arms. There will be a man wearing a red jacket sitting in the second to last booth, drinking beer. Place the valise next to him, and return home. Your maid, Jenny, will be returned to your coach yard before midnight tomorrow, along with your valise, if we are content with your payment,."

She smiled. Very considerate of them. At least Clara had the luck to be grabbed by professionals.

The she unfolded her daily copy of the times, and turned to the classified ads.

"Lost near Paternoster Row last night: Church Organ Music book. Contact George Leman at St. Giles on the fields."

She smiled. She had a few hours before the drop, so she headed down into her cellar, deciding that Jenny would be happy to replace one or two training dummies if they happened to suffer a mischief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An explanation of the code
> 
> Hat and Veil= Vastra  
> Shirt and Shawl= International Maritime Distress Signal  
> Priest's Gown= Nearest Church
> 
> Rough translation: Vastra in trouble/needs help. Dead drop at Nearest Church


	38. Chapter 38

The various streets between the butcher and Paternoster Row seemed even more crowded to Clara, as she stepped out of the shop, basket dangling from one arm.

All around her, there were people.

It took her about five seconds too long to realise that not all of those people were moving randomly around her.

A four wheeler cab dropped out of the traffic, empty, just as the man in the green coat who'd been about five to ten feet behind her the entire way dropped out of the crowd, suddenly very close to her, before she felt a prick against her skin, just enough that she froze as she was led towards the cab, a knife resting against her right kidney, before being bundled inside, along with Vastra's meat order and the butcher's basket.

As soon as the kerbside door had been slammed shut, they placed an old sack, containing an annoying, but harmless amount of extremely dry soil, fine enough to be described as dust, over her head, and a loop of rope was tied around her neck, looped through what felt like eyelets or loops on the outside of the hood, and securing the bag in place.

Then one of the men, who'd been very careful that she didn't see their face, spoke to her briefly, his accent cut glass, and about as distinctive as a black cab, telling you very little about anything other than the type.

"Miss Flint, put your hands behind your back in a position that you will find comfortable during an extended period with them tied in."

They think I'm Jenny. She thought. I'm not sure what sort of advantage that gives me. She grinned slightly under the hood, imaging the results if Jenny hadn't been in prison.

Reluctantly, she placed her wrists in the most neutral position behind her back that she could, with them crossed at around a 90 degree angle, with her palms outwards.

She was surprised at how relatively tenderly the ropes were looped around her wrists, although she was not in the slightest given the chance to gather her legs, and exit through the opposite door of the cab. When the ropes were in place, they were not going to be something she had a chance of working her wrists out of, she quickly found, shifting slightly against them more as a ritual statement than anything else, but they weren't tight enough to be causing issues with her blood supply.

As the coach rattled away through the streets, she just hoped that she was going to survive the next few hours, while making herself as comfortable as it was possible to get on a high backed seat with her hands bound comfortably, but securely, behind her back.

* * *

She knew it was in complete defiance of every domestic rule Jenny had imposed on her since they arrived in the Row, but that almost made the toasted cheese and sliced gherkin toasties she made for herself taste even better, as she curled up in her bed, wrapped around a mound of hot water bottles wrapped in a blanket, and, after finishing her meal, dozed off, gently drifting into sleep, without realising she had crossed the boundary between consciousness and sleep.

Vastra stirred slightly as she felt a warm draft from the hall, and then heard the tell-tale sound of a person not trying not to wake her up, but to be very quiet and make as little noise as possible, with the goal of silently slipping into bed after a late night.

Glancing up, muzzily, she saw Clara, wearing only the silk shift that Vastra had snuck under her pillow, so that it would be the first thing that the human found when reaching for her nightdress, coming down to just below the top of her thighs, the translucent material showing just a bit less than it hid, hiding nearly all of the details behind the material, but showing just enough to make her start producing hormones at a rate she only normally felt with Jenny, when her wife was in one of the wide variety of human garbs they had selected for playing various roles. The most tantalising sight was the human's breasts, barely visible behind the shift, and teasing her with their presence.

What would they feel like, compared to Jenny's? She pondered, momentarily remembering the human's reaction to the Silurian’s wandering eyes. I think they'll be considerably softer, with a lot less muscle underneath them. When Jenny was naked, her body was considerably harder than her face looked, almost possessing the anatomical feature humans referred to as a "six pack" although the majority of her physique was concealed behind a thin layer of fat, little more than required for insulation against the worst of the London winters. Clara, on the other hand, had a far sleeker body in some ways, although Vastra suspected that the ratio of fat to muscle was higher than Jenny's by quite a margin. She was going to be very interested to find out exactly how Clara felt, both inside and out

"Clara?" She asked, remembering that she was supposed to have been asleep when the human entered the bedroom. "Do you want anything?"

"I'm... not sure, ma'am." The human replied. "I've been thinking about your offer the first night I was here. I've... never done anything like that with anyone before, even at teaching college."

"Clara..." Vastra said, carefully, more wanting to spook the human into remembering her reaction the last time the Silurian had made a pass at her, in what had quickly become a massive faux-pas. "Are you sure that you want this?"

The small human looked at her briefly, before suddenly changing. Now, she was wearing her normal clothes, but her hands were bound together behind her back, wrists crossed, and an old potato sack was tied over her head, with a loop of rope forcing it into her mouth, effectively gagging her.

Then Vastra catapulted awake.

Outside the window, she could see the sun sinking below the horizon, dropping behind the church steeples and factory chimneys that dominated the London skyline.

She dressed for action, clambering into her hunting clothes with an almost eager spring to her step, before slinging her katanas over both shoulders, ready to take immediate action should the circumstances require it.

She had also called in a favour.

At about a quarter to nine, a groaning noise emanated from her cellar, although experience suggested that it would be inaudible unless you were positioned in front of the coal chute, and even then, would likely be taken from cranky plumbing, rather than the second part of her plan arriving.

"Vastra!" she heard from downstairs.

"Coming, Doctor." She replied, grinning.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the cellar was somewhat fuller than usual, even after having been used as a concealed landing place for the TARDIS. She was amused to see the eight commandos, borrowed from UNIT, maintaining their areas of responsibility, even in a building that was considered safe. She was slightly less surprised to see the other person who'd been brought along for the ride, and greeted her warmly, noticing the way one of the human commandos was standing, without leaving any blind-spots in his own coverage, in a way that offered her as much protection as possible.

The Doctor was waiting for her. "Vastra, what is this about? I am not a taxi service, although I appreciate that I owed you a favour for Demon's Run."

"Clara had an encounter I believe to have been intended for Jenny." She showed the Doctor both cards, before he turned away; muttering something, before her final ally finally overcame her diffidence.

"Allana!" She called, watching as her welsh cousin slid past the human guarding her with a slightly possessive glance at him, before throwing her arms around Vastra.

"Cousin Vastra." She greeted Vastra, in Silurian, for at least a modicum of felt privacy. "You are looking as if your ape feeds you well."

"She does. I have hopes for her progression to the sixth chakim before the year is out. I dare say that she would grace the fields at Va'taakduk in her own class."

"Va'taakduk? You must be very proud of her."

"She studies well, and is diligent with her katas. Do you have hopes on the human?" She said, glancing back at one of the younger commandoes.

"He seems strong. We spent time talking on the trip here. I think he has skills that are quite distinct to those of our warriors, but would be a valuable skillset to learn."

"I see. I know exactly what it is like to find a human that triggers eros'tika, cousin. They are a species given to many things, including a level of passion somewhat greater than that present in our kindred. Their metabolism is an extremely pleasant thing to have beside you on a cold morning."

"Excuse me, Ma'am." One of the humans, wearing a jacket with three downward chevrons on it, said, extremely politely. "I understand that you haven't seen each other for a while, but we need to start planning."

"Very well, sergeant. If you and your team would follow me upstairs, I will lay out our plan."

 

* * *

 

Vastra had, with a certain amount of assistance, installed a few surprises in her rear reception room, which was normally closed, with the furniture hidden behind dust sheets.

A full holographic display was the centrepiece of the room, which she fired up as the last commando took a seat.

"As you may or may not be aware, my current maid, and one of the Doctor's travelling companions, Miss Clara Oswald, has been kidnapped, and is being held for ransom. While I do not consider three hundred sovereigns more than she is valued at by several different people, I am not in the mood to allow a kidnap team to get away with acting in such a fashion."

"Sergeant, you and your unit will be held in readiness at the stables behind Paris Place. We have borrowed a pair of four wheeled cabs, somewhat shabby, for your use, along with drivers. They are from a small group within the metropolitan police who are aware of what is happening, and that the technology you use is unusual, although they believe it to have been provided by me."

"Allana, do you remember when we used to impersonate each other for the males while we were studying?" The other Silurian dipped her head. "Your role today is vital. In ten minutes, you will call a cab, and proceed to a human tavern called the King's Arms. This journey will take you roughly an hour, as it is on the far side of the centre of the metropolis. On arrival, you will enter the building, and hand a human item known as a valise case to a human, wearing a red weatherproof garment on his upper body, sitting in the second to last booth. You will then exit the building and return to Paternoster Row. The kitchen is the room that smells of food, and three slices of bacon will have been left in a pan next to a cooking plate. Those are for you."

"Once the drop has been made, I will follow the man with the money case from the rooftops, where humans very rarely look. Hopefully, there will be very few pigeons on my route. Once he has entered a building, and remained within for twenty minutes, I will call in the military team, to immediately assault the building, which should be within ten minutes of your lying up point. The level of resistance expected is unknown, and it is likely that those inside will be carrying revolvers or similar pistols, although they should pose little danger to you if they strike body armour. I expect that a cellar or something will be present under the building, although I do not know if there will be an additional guard within."

"Do you have any intelligence on the building that you expect us to be assaulting?" The UNIT Sergeant asked, looking slightly sceptical.

"I will by the time you attack it." Vastra replied, impressed by the professionalism, although it wasn't something she hadn't been expecting.

"How will we get to the lying up point?" the man asked. "I'm assuming this building is under surveillance."

"I have a secret exit route. Given the nature of my work as a consulting detective, being able to enter or exit my own home unobserved is useful. It comes out in the disused stables at number nineteen, where your carriages will be waiting. Lord Scott is in Egypt visiting the pyramids at the moment, and the butler is a souse. I will show you to the tunnel, and accompany you as far as the stables, before circling to take my position at the tavern before Allana arrives."

Then Allana raised her hand. "Cousin Vastra, how do you use a phone in this period?" she asked, looking dubiously at the device sitting on a side table at the rear of the room.

"You rotate the dial on the front so that our finger is over the zero with your finger. Then, once you have done that, you ask the operator to connect you to Charles Lane Cab office, and ask for a cab at 13 Paternoster Row as soon as possible, but make sure you are dressed as me first." She said, as the other Silurian darted out of the room, heading for where Vastra had deposited her clothes when she cleared for action.

Vastra smiled, before heading for her tunnel, with the commando team and the Doctor in tow, smiling somewhat grimly.


	39. Chapter 39

As the cab pulled up outside the human tavern, Allana reviewed her part in the operation to follow. The main, and most important part, was that she successfully impersonate Vastra. That wasn't going to be a problem. One of her and Vastra's primary private amusements while they were studying had been swapping sexual partners without either partner realising that the female in their bed wasn't the same one who had been with them last time. They had never been caught at it.

As she pushed open the poorly fitted wooden door, she heard a distinctive noise, although she knew that it would be almost inaudible to the ears of a human. The sound in question was a slightly undulating hunting cry, soft enough to avoid spooking a nervous herd of hypsilodon if the caller was a few yards away.

Vastra was in position, then, she thought, with a smile that was less openly malevolent than Vastra's version, but still worrying to see, particularly if the smiler happened to be carrying the spear that had been her preferred weapon, as opposed to Vastra and her swords.

Inside, it was a typical human tavern. The ceiling was lower than perhaps comfortable, and she could see several young-looking females wearing gowns that hinted that they were a menu item as well as servers, carrying trays loaded with leather tankards, presumably full of the somewhat bitter drink humans made from fermented barley, or just about anything else that they could lay their hands on and ferment to form an alcoholic beverage.

She glanced along a row of what could charitably be described as booths, assuming that was the correct description of a pair of high-backed benches with little padding, facing each other over a table.

With little ceremony, she deposited the case of sovereigns on the table of a man matching the description of the man she'd been told to give the money to, in the correct booth, as they were one row, along the wall next to the door. He nodded at her, before staying seated, and gesturing for her to leave.

She'd retained the cab outside, so that, at Vastra's advice, she wouldn't end up walking through the streets of Southwark after dark. With her nostrils torturously filled with the scent of drunken humans, she clambered gratefully back into the cab, which trotted away, heading for Paternoster Row, and bacon.

 

* * *

 

Vastra watched her cousin walk into the tavern, before scuttling over to a crude skylight to observe her cousin carefully, and hopefully very temporarily, handing over enough gold coins to purchase a small manse outright. The man she had handed the case to continued drinking for about a quarter of an hour, before standing up, then tucking his distinctive coat into the case, which he carefully placed inside a sailors ditty bag, before making his exit via the front entrance, watching the street carefully.

It is one of the perennial failings of the human, however, that we rarely look up at the roofs, or down at the street, and so it proved. Vastra carefully kept pace with the man from rooftop to rooftop, tracking him about half a mile, before sitting back and waiting when he entered another, even more disreputable looking tavern.

A few minutes later, her quarry stepped out of the door, without his bag, but with a slight spring to his step that she guessed equated to five sovereigns.

With a grim smile, she extracted from her belt a low light camera, before aiming it at the man's face, and taking a photograph of him, in the hope of being able to run him down later.

She could only watch one entrance, though.

Fortunately, the man inside was not as well educated in the art of concealment as the Silurian, and used the most obvious exit, which fed into a narrow alleyway, taking the visibly armed man, judging by the bulge in his jacket, deeper into a rookery. The streets were narrower, and even at the hour of eleven in the evening, they were full of apes, although she was able to track her target all the way to the riverbank, perhaps a third of a mile from where she'd positioned her trump card, inside a small, Tudor warehouse that had few values to an honest merchant. The draft in front of the dock was too shallow for a modern trading vessel, and the watercourse did not lend itself to dredging.

She darted up the roof of the bordello overlooking the warehouse, using her toe-claws to more easily grip the beam, before taking a small device out of her pocket, and designating the building with a small pointer.

The device came to life, rising from the roof with an inaudible whine, before departing at speed towards the warehouse, buzzing as the tiny scanner it mounted, operating on microwave wavelengths, completely scanned through the walls of the building, generating a full record of the layout, before returning to Vastra.

The silurian accepted the printout from the device gravely, before attaching it to a second drone, and sitting back, watching the warehouse with interest as her messenger drone buzzed away, carrying the floor plan of the target building for the use of the UNIT commando team a third of a mile away.

Then the Silurian turned into another roof decoration, to any observer without a thermal camera capable of detecting her breath as it came out.

 

* * *

 

"If you want to keep her around to see what happens, Jolt, you'll need to talk to section fifteen at the border agency. They deal with these sorts of visas." Sergeant Alex Craig told his youngest trooper, Alek James, aka Jolt. "A few of the lads have Silurian wives already, so it isn't a big deal at headquarters, if you want things to go that far."

"She's, different, boss." The trooper replied, smiling slightly. "I've seen a few aliens around the place, but she almost seems like a normal person. There is the spear thing." He continued with a grin. "But I guess I can live with someone who occasionally answers the door with a pike."

The various squaddies chuckled.

Then the small drone arrived, before docking with the holographic display unit which served it as a charging station, before displaying the schematic of a building, including exterior photos.

"She's come good." Sergeant Craig said grimly. "Now it's time for us to do the same."

He pored over the plan, occasionally tracing things with a pointer.

"Corporal, your team will enter through the loading door at the front of the building, next to the river. Use a breaching charge to ensure surprise. There is a first floor with three cubbies off the stairs, all connected as one room. Breach the door, and clear it." Corporal Hex, as he was known to the entire force except the personnel officer at headquarters, nodded, looking carefully at the plan. "Continue up the external stairs, and clear all three upper stories. Radio before you come down the final set of stairs."

"My team, we're going in through the personnel access at the rear. That gets us into the ground floor offices, which is where they will likely be holed up if they aren't upstairs. We're also going to go Bolshevik Muppet on the doors downstairs. If we don't secure the hostage, team two are to descend the rear stairs, and storm the cellar. Remember, it is very likely that the hostage will be unable to defend herself or self-rescue in the event of a fire, so keep the flashbangs controlled. This building is a luxury block of flats when we are, so no accidental fires. This lot are off the reservation, so if one of them is holding any sort of weapon, and any hostages are clear of your line of fire, take the shot."

Once the fairly simple briefing was concluded, the rescue team loaded up, carrying a frankly alarming amount of weaponry.

Each commando was armed with a standard 5.56mm G-36 carbine, with three magazines loaded with standard rounds, as they were not expecting to encounter any hostile targets wearing body armour. Alongside the carbine, each trooper also carried a classic weapon: the Heckler and Koch MP5, chambered in 9mm parabellum, a round designed more than a century ago. The bullets themselves were intended for combat in these sorts of close range firefights, having a reduced charge, and using an expanding bullet to minimize the chances of an over-penetration or a ricochet killing or injuring a hostage. The weapon was pinpoint accurate for about fifteen metres, which, in a close quarters assault, was all the range in the world. In case of a failure, each trooper also had been issued a Browning Hi-power, again, chambered in 9mm, and using expanding bullets.

Each trooper also had a pair of fragmentation grenades hanging from their belt, along with four flashbangs and two smoke grenades. It was the most important part of their arsenal. The flashbangs would give them a huge advantage when storming a room, almost regardless of what or who was inside. Even a Dalek was incapacitated by a stun grenade.

Carefully, the team collected their charges, connecting up the various blocks of plastic explosive on the two breaching charges, before running a series of circuit tests, ensuring that the two pound explosive charges would detonate when prompted.

Once everything was in place, the team mounted up, locking and loading on route, but talking very little, except for going over final points of operational information.

When the two coaches pulled up, the team dismounted, before heading to their objectives, splitting into two carefully drilled kill-teams as they did so.

 

* * *

 

Clara shifted awkwardly, changing her upper body position to minimise discomfort from her bound wrists.

Several times, the men holding her had fed a rubber tube in under her gag, with the far end dipped in a glass of what tasted like small beer, or a basic soup. It allowed them to feed and water her without giving her a look at anything which might give them away when she was interviewed by the police.

There was one slight indignity, though, she thought, testing her feet against the wooden bars that kept them close together and parallel, like she was a medieval peasant who had committed a minor offence. Being locked in a set of stocks was fairly demeaning to say the least.

Every few hours, two of them came downstairs, and lifted her onto a bucket, before using a small probe to reposition her underwear in order to allow her to relieve herself into the bucket. It was possibly more demeaning than the stocks.

 

* * *

 

"Team Two, in position."

"Copy that team two." Sergeant Craig replied into his headset. "Is the door ready?"

"Door is ready." Hex replied. "Going green."

"Copy that, corporal." Craig said. "In five... four... three... two... One... fire in the hole."

The two breaching charges went off within a tenth of a second of each other.

 

* * *

 

Clara felt the building shake suddenly, showering her with dust and arthropods from the ceiling with an almost simultaneous set of thunderclaps. She grinned under the hood, despite the sudden shower of small and large spiders. Vastra seemed to have found some help from somewhere.

Then, faintly, she heard the first gunshots.

* * *

"Go go go go go." Craig yelled, stepping through the breached doorway and almost instantly pivoting to his right, allowing his number two to cover the section immediately ahead of the door. "Clear." He yelled, before a size twelve combat boot, UNIT SOF issue, smashed through the door ahead of them, clearing the way for a stun grenade, which exploded with a deafening blast of sound, and a completely disorienting flash of light.

The commando stepped through the door, again pivoting to his right. This time, a man was standing in an archway, holding a revolver low, clearly trying to get his bearings again.

Craig shot him three times in the head from five feet away, with 9mm expanding bullets.

It wasn't pretty.

Behind him, there was another brief salvo, and he heard another body drop, before a revolver roared from behind a table.

The gunman fired twice, filling the room with a sudden haze of powder smoke, obscuring his own vision. Unfortunately for him, the commandos were wearing environmental adaption masks. The resultant smoke was not even visible, as far as they were concerned.

A G-36 was raised on its sling, the commando allowing his submachine gun to dangle from its retaining strap for a few moments. A burst of 5.56mm rounds tore through the table top, the chest of the man behind it, and into the wooden floor, before punching into a wall perhaps six feet to Clara's left. She squeaked slightly as she heard the impacts, and was sprayed with shards of brick wall, although she had no way of changing her posture or making herself less of a target, thanks to the bench she was seated on.

The gunman fired a third and then a fourth shot, aiming at the commandos, striking one of the troopers, Carmichael, in the chest with a .45 copper jacketed hollow point. The slug punched the man two steps backwards, shattering a primary layer strike plate with its kinetic energy. It caused no other damage, before Trooper James stepped around the side of the man's cover, and shot him twice in the head with his submachine gun. The man dropped to the floor with the grace of a sack of potatoes.

Outside the cellar door, the commando team found two more hostage takers, one armed with a coach-gun, the other waving a Martini-Metford rifle. Both men were behind a row of barrels, which, judging by the slight puddle on the floor, were full of water. No sooner had the commandos entered the room than both barrels of the coach-gun were fired in quick succession, spraying two of the troopers, James and

Craig glanced around at the room. Judging from the plan created by Vastra's ingenious little drone the vaults below had were barrel-vault construction, with ceilings that would likely only be strengthened by a grenade blast. He was less sure about the floor above, but it was unlikely that the shrapnel would penetrate a layer of boards and a tiled roof.

He made a pair of hand signals at Carmichael, who had just finished swapping out his damaged strike plate, thanks to the design of the vest he was wearing. The man nodded, before pulling a hand grenade off of his belt, pulling the pin, and rolling the spherical weapon along the floor and around the barricade.

The weapon went off with a sharp crack, filling the room with dust, shortly before the section of floor which had supported the barricade went crashing into the vault below. He heard a scream from below, which thankfully wasn't cut off suddenly, but petered out of its own will.

"Shit!" The commando hissed.

 

* * *

 

Clara couldn't help but scream as an explosion went off about ten metres away, above her head. It half-deafened her, but not enough that she did not hear and feel the floor collapse in, barrels of cold water smashing open ten feet ahead of her, liberally deluging her with a wall of what smelt like water drawn from the Thames without any cleaning.

"Hoi!" She yelled. "What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at up there?"

 

* * *

 

"Hostage located." Jolt said into his radio, deadpan.

"Thank you, trooper." Craig replied, grinning slightly. "Scoot, Jolt, get down there and extract the hostage, will you?"

"Aye aye, boss." They replied, grinning, before producing a pair of hooks, and screwing them into the doorframe, the other two commandos standing out of the way, before fastening their descent lines onto the hooks, and stepping backwards over the hole in the floor.

It wasn't the perfect way to descend, as they were likely to end up in a crouch when they landed, thanks to the lack of support to keep them upright. That said, any hostile in the cellar was either under the debris, or gone, so it was a relatively safe bet.

Both troopers landed in a crouch, before glancing around briefly, checking for hostiles, before approaching Clara, who was muttering about the lack of manner they were displaying. Scoot stepped to one side, before placing a laser dot on the forehead of the bound figure, before Jolt, approaching from the other side, yanked off the hood.

"Oh for…" Clara muttered, becoming very aware of the red dot on her forehead.

Jolt extracted a small photo from his vest, before comparing it to Clara.

"It's her." He said, before the submachine gun snapped up and away. Carefully, he reached behind her, before using his combat knife to carefully slice the ropes around her wrists, freeing her from what had become a somewhat uncomfortable position over time, even with ropes loose enough that she had retained full circulation.

Meanwhile, Scoot was examining the padlock holding closed the stocks. He raised his pistol speculatively, before lowering it again. "Hold on a minute." He said, before pulling what looking like brightly coloured string from his pocket.

"Scoot, you are not going to use that on the padlock." Jolt said. "It'd send shrapnel everywhere."

"I'm not." He replied, wrapping a small loop of it around the bracket holding the device shut. "I'm using it on the loop, where it won't cause any real damage."

"Your arse if she gets hurts, and boss finds out." Jolt said, before placing a small blanket over the end of the pillory, once the fuse had been connected. Scoot pressed a button, and there was a muted, sudden clap as the two inches of cord went off at a speed of more than seven kilometres per second, slicing cleanly through the somewhat decrepit, and somewhat rotten, loop of mild steel. A swift kick twisted the remainder out of shape, and the wooden bars were shifted apart, allowing Clara to move her legs for the first time in nearly a day.

She was helped to her feet by the two commandos, before an explosion echoed down the cellar steps.

"Clear!" she heard yelled, despite being slightly deafened from the blast.

When they got to the top of the stairs, two more commandos were waiting, one holding a ceremonial foil blanket, before they guided her out of the building, and into a waiting carriage, and straight into the arms of an extremely expressive Silurian.


	40. Chapter 40

Clara recoiled in surprise as Vastra suddenly wrapped herself around her, holding her close with far too much force for her ribcage to seemingly withstand, and making a sound that could only be described as a low croon. It was something of a surprise for her, given the Silurian's normal level of expressiveness, even though she had been trying to seduce her temporary maid for four days, prior to Clara's abduction.

Then she felt the Silurian's hands rise slightly away from the rib-breaking hold they had been maintaining, and jerked her head away, not nearly quick enough to evade what appeared to be a padded leather collar, produced from a sleeve, and suddenly buckled around her neck, fitted with a padlock.

"Take it off." She growled, her voice slightly rougher than usual from her extended imprisonment. "I am not a dog, cat, horse or any other sort of mammal you are likely to compare me to. I am a human, and humans do not have to wear collars unless they want to."

Vastra looked at her, clearly marshalling her thoughts carefully. Then she reluctantly removed the collar, dropping it into Clara's hands, just before throwing the human girl behind her.

 

* * *

 

"... Unless they want to." Vastra heard, looking up at the building that her temporary ape had been extracted from, trying to discern the slight movement that had drawn her peripheral vision up to one of the first floor windows.

Almost invisible against the side of the building, she saw a slender metal tube, with a small protrusion at one end, slowing tracking around, before she suddenly realised it was aiming between Clara's shoulder blades.

She reacted without any thought. Without hesitation, she removed the collar, before suddenly throwing the girl into the carriage, and offering her own body for the shot, just as the still unseen marksman pulled his trigger.

The black powder charge ignited, sending a hollow-pointed slug of lead hurtling out of the barrel of his rifle, perhaps from a range of thirty feet. The round actually accelerated slightly as it travelled, punching into the Silurian's chest with perhaps the equivalent force of a well-thrown brick.

The slug actually penetrated the first layer of body armour, punching through five layers of ballistic fabric, before a collision with a steel strike plate made by a Japanese master swordsmith at her specific request.

The almost perfectly forged steel gave slightly, before the momentum of the slug was used to deform it into a thinner layer perhaps two centimetres deep, flattened from just under a third of an inch to perhaps the diameter of a penny.

 

* * *

 

Clara suddenly heard an almost biblically loud crack, as if a tall building had suddenly shifted a few degrees. Then Vastra landed on top of her, producing a strange set of syllables that had, strangely, the rhythm of swear words, before slipping briefly out of consciousness, her head flopping backwards over Clara's shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Sergeant Craig spun when he heard the gunshot.

Sourcing it was easy enough. A rifle barrel, smoke still tricking from it, was hanging out of a window, inside a haze of powder smoke.

Without conscious thought, his rifle was resting against his shoulder, pointing upwards, the cross hairs in the built in scope lining up with the window behind which the firer was presumably standing.

His thumb caressed a switch on the side of the weapon, setting the G-36k carbine to fire a three round burst.

Then he squeezed the trigger firmly, and very smoothly.

Three narrow projectiles shot out of the barrel, spinning rapidly. The glass of the window proved no match for them, before they punched into the gunman, still lowering the rifle after taking his first shot.

The first bullet tracked straight through the man's chest, narrowly missing an artery, before exiting on the far side, embedding itself in a roof beam with a thump. The following round struck perhaps an inch to the left, tearing into the aorta with a certain degree of efficiency, leaving two holes for high pressure blood to exit into the chest cavity and flow out of the body from, before embedding itself in the remains of a freshly shattered rib. The final round widened the tear, slicing open the artery, leaving the blood pressure inside the human's body dropping radically. He collapsed to the floor, bleeding to death even before the commandos of team two had burst into the room.

 

* * *

 

Vastra opened her eyes, slightly surprised to be in a position to do so. Her chest felt like it had been struck with a baseball bat, or perhaps a horse's hoof.

She was also surprised to find she was on top of Clara and quickly levered herself off of the human.

Nervously, even these thought it unlikely that she was injured, she felt at her chest, quickly extracting a lump of lead, perhaps the diameter of a penny piece. It was still warm to the touch.

"I shall have to be more careful." She said, wincing as she found some more parts of her body that were bruised. The high (by period standards) velocity bullet had directly struck one of the purpose designed strike plates in her body armour, designed to take exactly that sort of impact full on. If it had ended up striking just fabric, it was likely to have ended up embedded somewhere in her chest cavity. What it would have done to an entirely unarmoured Clara barely seemed imaginable.

Shaken, she clambered into the carriage, noticing that Clara was already inside, and the small human was in her seat, to the Silurian's left, if she took her customary position. Vastra settled into the coupe, driven by a third of Lestrade's detectives, before the convoy of carriages flattered down the old cobbles, quickly seeking out the more modern streets beyond, their drivers setting their sights on reaching St. Paul's cathedral within a quarter of an hour.

As they clattered through the streets, Vastra just allowed Clara to sit next to her in complete silence, processing the surprising amount of affection that she felt for the small human. It was similar, she realised, to how she had begun to value Jenny, in the early days of their relationship, before the young ape had reached the stage where she was interested in other bipeds, and, Vastra had assumed, specifically those who happened to be of the opposite gender to her.

That, and the warmth the human species as a whole was lucky to produce, had been the initial cement in her relationship with the young ape. She'd served as what she thought of as a Ki'chi'la; the closest word in any of the human languages being the Japanese word Sensei. The level of mentoring, in everything from dealing with others, to martial skills, and other pursuits, were very similar.

The progression of the Silurian's relationship with her maid had been curious. She'd spent several months, once they were no longer living in a garret, putting her ape in situations where she was meeting other apes of her own age. She'd expected the human to pair quickly, only for her to show no interest in the males, and only a minimal amount of interest in the females.

In the end, she'd found herself taking the then sixteen year old ape to bed, after a particularly loud and acrimonious discussion of the Silurian's dietary habits with regards to red meat and sourcing it.

With Clara, she felt a surprising amount of comfort when the human girl was around. It wasn't the same type as Jenny, perhaps except for the early days, when Jenny had been unable to effectively engage in self-defence. Inside, she had admitted to herself while Clara was a houseguest with the Doctor, just after his regeneration, that she somewhat regretfully found herself desiring her. She'd confessed that to Jenny. The little dragon had responded to the revelation with disgruntled acceptance, and had not attacked Vastra with a frying pan.

 

* * *

 

Jenny snuggled deeper into the covers on her bed, finally running out of mischief. The odds, as she saw them, of her lizard staying out of trouble for more than a few days without supervision from an expert with a level 4 NVQ in Vastra Management were something approaching zero. The Silurian would have found a new form of trouble.

Fortunately for her continued amusement, and her not making an escape attempt from her bed, she'd been provided with a complimentary games console, loaded with fun. As her avatar clambered over the rooftops in twelfth century Jerusalem, she was tracking her natural prey carefully: a criminal. Soon to be decreased. She sprang. Her target died.

She took a careful sip of her tea, once that part of the mission was completed. It was almost like when she took Vastra hunting in Southwark. The prey fell into the same category.

Her malnutrition was beginning to recede. A daily session of upper body cycling kept her in the right sort of shape to be able to continue once she was discharged without needing training to regain her physical capabilities. She was just slightly bored. No locks, not a safe in sight. Just bored. No Silurian to supervise, no Strax to keep out of trouble. Just an endless supply of medics, computer games, and the occasional newspaper.

She was very, very, mind-numbingly bored. And the cast on her ankle was secured to the bed. Her lock-picks were back in a chest somewhere in the property store at Newgate prison, in her own time.

 

* * *

 

Once they were inside the row, Vastra took charge. Leaving the commando team in the kitchens, cooking an old fashioned fry-up, complete with onions, mushrooms and eggs, along with the large amount of red meat, she carried Clara upstairs, before reluctantly, of course, peeling the exhausted human out of her clothing, and decanting her into the bath, adding a large amount of smelly stuff that did a wonderful job of removing issues like sewer muck, and all of the other surfactants that it is possible to acquire while stalking a serial killer from the rooftops.

Then she placed a flotation ring around the small human's neck, and sat back, letting her simply soak in the warm water, without the risk of drowning if she fell asleep. She wasn't surprised to watch her nodding off after a few moments.

Then she sat back, extracting her small cigarette case from inside her dress, before lighting the inhaling herbs she used in place of tobacco. Jenny had been shown what happened to those who consumed the tobacco based version, but Vastra's were completely free of any trace radioactive elements, although Jenny was banned from swiping them, as they caused extreme levels of itching if she inhaled the smoke herself. Vastra had not been able to find her an alternative without worse side effects, so Jenny was always annoyed when the Silurian lit up.

 

* * *

 

Jolt was in the kitchen, processing his very large fry-up, when he spotted Allana stepping into the room. He suspected that she'd been up to something when she hadn't been waiting at the door more than briefly.

She had found a fairly flattering dress, in a pale blue fabric that served the purpose of covering everything important while showing just enough to generate interest in what was underneath, if hormones were allowed an input.

Sure enough, she glided over to his bench, and took a seat, shortly before her tongue made a rapid transit, causing a sausage to disappear from his plate.

Allana had carefully selected the dress from Vastra's collection that she thought was most flattering. The elder Silurian only wore black 'widow's weeds' in public, as part of her official persona, not that she wouldn't be very open about her lifestyle choice. It seemed, however, that Jenny had been trying to get her a selection of walking out dresses with the idea that she might start "Doin' the bleedin' shoppin' for 'erself." She remembered, from one of the letters they had exchanged. A number of dresses had been procured.

The selection of scents was typically Vastra. Most of the jars were labelled, marked as "two days, no bath. Adolescent Ape," or "night-soil worker, after shift." There were a number of actual perfumes, in considerably more ornate containers. She carefully sprayed on a few squirts of Lilly of the Valley, having checked the bottom of the bottle to ensure that it was safe for both Silurian and human use. The smell was surprisingly pleasant, for a scent form such a different time period, and she hoped, would be appreciated.

The kitchen was filled with aroma when she arrived, recognising a classic meal: the high-calorie and fat fried selection. The Silurian military had had a very similar selection dish. The consumption of it before or after high-stress missions was accepted.

Carefully, she took a seat next to her chosen male, before beginning the standard courtship ritual she was familiar with.

She identified a particular morsel, before stealing it, using her tongue.

Jolt looked at the slowly chewing female, before deciding to take a little action of his own. The small booklet he'd been given on silurians was no Haynes manual, but it detailed the basics of behaviour. The correct response, if he wanted to encourage her, was to ignore the theft, and if she committed a second, then to take action.

Sure enough, her tongue snaked out again, this time nabbing a hash brown.

He simply acted.

Without standing up, he bundled her off of the bench, using his training and slightly superior weight to press her into one of the brightly coloured rugs Vastra seemed to favour, before wrestling with her, trying to gain actual dominance. Normally, he would have done nothing of the sort, but Silurian courtship rituals were very primitive, in some ways.

Eventually, she was pinned, with her hands looped through a pair of disposable restraints, which were cinched snugly enough she couldn't extract herself from them, before he simply slung her over a shoulder, and hauled her upstairs to demonstrate that she had made a wise selection.

 

* * *

 

Clara woke up as the water cooled slightly.

The first thing that she noticed was that she felt clean, comfortable and relaxed.

The second was, of course, Vastra, tucking into one of the little sweetmeats she carried around with her with surprising delicacy.

"Hey." She suddenly said. "Would you mind turning your back, and not looking in the mirror?"

"What's in it for me?" Vastra asked, her tone taking on the mock seriousness that she was slowly learning to interpret as teasing.

"Breakfast." Clara replied, grinning slightly.

The Silurian simply placed a towel over her head, before passing Clara a bathrobe, which proved to have three features: automatic wicking, keeping the fabric dry and moving the moisture away from her body. There was also a warming system rigged, warming the robe until it felt like it had just come out of the airing cupboard and was toasty warm. It also featured a small device that kept the robe closed at the top, as well as around the middle.

Marching through to the bedroom she was somehow willing to share with the Silurian, Clara reached under her pillow, immediately finding the filmy chemise the Silurian had left underneath it.

"Vastra!" She yelled. "Get in here."

The Silurian scuttled through the door, having the grace to least pretend to be embarrassed by the discovery.

"What part of 'I am not into that sort of thing' was causing you confusion?" She barked, waving the chemise as if it were a particularly poor essay on Shakespeare.

"I thought it might be more comfortable than your current dress." Vastra lied, meeting Clara's eyes the whole way through the statement.

Then Clara's hands found another item under her pillow. Glaring, she pulled out the same leather collar Vastra had placed around her neck. On it, she noticed, was a small plaque. She brandished it at Vastra.

"Clara Oswald, Paternoster Row, London 5783." The Silurian read. "Is any of the information wrong?" She asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"I am not a pet." She hissed. "Putting my name and your phone number on a collar, and securing it around my neck, is demeaning as hell."

"I was worried about you." Vastra almost keened. "I had it ordered to make sure you'd have something with your name on it. The nameplate is sterling silver, as is everything except the buckle. Even the leather costs 5/- a foot."

Clara looked at Vastra, seemingly surprised. "What exactly would happen if you tried to put a collar on Jenny?" She asked.

"She has about eight." Vastra replied. "There's one which is for attachments, and another with studs. She also has a copper one we brought last year, with a little plaque on it."

"It's not that I don't think that it was a really nice gift." Clara said, finding the sentiment genuine. "It isn't just girls I'm not into. It's also bondage that I'm not keen on. I got given that 50 Shades book in the secret Santa thing. Eugh."

Grinning slightly, she extracted her preferred nightdress, before turning her back and clambering into it quickly, checking the Silurian's line of sight did not include her, even via a mirror. It wasn't so much that the Silurian's face was one she considered untrustworthy, she just knew what she could trust her to be doing. Like peeking.

Vastra had also changed, clambering into the nightdress Clara had brought for her just a few short days earlier. Reluctantly, she'd admitted to herself that it was warmer, more comfortable and better fitting than her previous dress. All it needed was a few days with Jenny, and it would smell as good.

Then the Silurian curled up against Clara, capturing her slightly within her body, drinking in as much warmth as possible. She even started snoring after a few moments of falling asleep, although the human was out for the count when her head touched the pillow.


	41. Chapter 41

Clara woke up at about the same time as Vastra. The Silurian had awakened first, and immediately decided that she wanted bacon sandwiches, with brown sauce.

As such, she gently prodded her temporary maid in the ribs.

"Whuh?" Clara groaned.

"I don't suppose that there is likelihood of you serving me breakfast in bed?" Vastra asked, easing the human towards the edge of the bed.

"I'm not going to be your cook." Clara said, more fully awake. "And if you dare to push me out of the bed, you will regret doing so."

Reluctantly, Vastra stopped pushing. Then she started to snuggle again.

"Gerroff." Clara told the snuggling annoyance, elbowing her in the ribs. "I am not a hot water bottle, or any form of toy." Vastra gently captured her, pinning her arms to her sides, before beginning to croon what sounded like a lullaby.

"Fine." Clara said. "I'll get you your…?"

"Bacon sandwich with brown sauce." Vastra said, not releasing the human until she'd completed her order.

Vastra immediately uncurled, allowing Clara to drop into the dinosaur themed slippers she was borrowing from Jenny, before heading downstairs, where the bacon and hotplate awaited her.

Inside the kitchen, she wasn't entirely surprised to find Allana, who she'd been very briefly introduced to the previous night, pottering around, and clearly gathering food. After a moment, she grabbed the Silurian’s arm, pulling her away from one cupboard.

"Don't get anything out of there." She said, having observed the hand-painted daffodil on the front of the pine cupboard. "That's where Jenny keeps her gardening supplies. Eating a daffodil bulb gives you a stomach upset." She told Allana, carefully checking through what the Silurian had already scavenged, and removing two bulbs, along with what appeared to be a paper packet of plant food.

"Those are toxic to humans." She said, kindly.

"What are they doing in the kitchen?" Allana asked, seemingly baffled.

"The flower on the box is Jenny's way of identifying gardening supplies." Clara explained, keeping her voice matter-of-fact and accepting. "It's a cultural thing."

Collecting the bacon from the closet, and noticing the golden retriever reaction of the silurian at seeing the food, she quickly extracted another two slices of bacon from the cupboard, before dropping them into the pan next to the first slices, taking advantage of the size of the skillet pan, which was all of eighteen inches across, and made from cast iron.

Once the pan was on the stove, it didn't take it long to heat up, and the bacon began to sizzle audibly, provoking what Clara now suspected to be a genetically hardcoded pavlovian response in the silurian watching her cook, as she carefully browned the bacon in its own juices, before simply flipping it onto unbuttered bread, two slices at a time, ignoring the immediate vanishing of the first sandwich, before plating up the second and carrying it upstairs, collecting a feather duster on her way past.

Vastra, much as she'd suspected the Silurian would have, had curled up again, so the duster was employed, slowly lowered into position, before the Silurian sneezed as the feathers engulfed her face, jerking her into an annoyed level of awakenedness.

Her nose twitched with the proximity of the bacon sandwich, before she pounced on Clara, bearing her to the ground and taking full possession of the sandwich, before sitting on the human while she ate, enjoying the extra warmth.

Once she had finished the sandwich, however, Clara began to belabour the Silurian with her duster, repeatedly striking her over the head with it until she finally released her temporary maid from underneath her.

Then, of course, Vastra darted into the shower, enjoying the horseplay and the letting off of the head of steam she'd built up during the previous few days.

 

* * *

 

Unknown date, 2015, St. George's Hospital, London/ 23rd February, 1895, Newgate Prison, London.

After nearly a week in hospital, receiving large amounts of modern medical care, Jenny was finally ready to be discharged. All of her bags were packed.

There was just one sticking point.

"I am not wearin' those bleeding rags when we go back." She yelled at Vastra, who was offering her the freshly laundered, entirely parasite free prison uniform she'd arrived at the hospital in five days earlier.

Vastra didn't know quite how to react. Usually, it was her being asked to wear something silly in order to avoid people realising that although she was humanoid, she wasn't exactly human as well.

Fortunately, Clara was ready to step in with some support.

"Jenny, if you aren't wearing them, they'll probably decide you haven't been punished for the last part of your sentence, and insist that you serve the entire term inside of Newgate."

Jenny's eyes were still sunken from the bout of consumption, as she insisted on calling it, even to the medical staff, that she had been treated for while in hospital. As it turned out, the dose of medicine she'd been given while aboard the TARDIS had cleared the initial infection, but done nothing to protect her from re-infection, which, in the unsanitary, damp environment of the prison, had likely occurred within hours. The resulting course of advanced antibiotics, to which the version of the disease she'd been carrying had responded well, much to the surprise of medics used to treating drug-resistant modern strains, until they briefly were allowed access to enough of her notes to discover that this was a pre-medication strain of the disease, had left her drained, although she'd been able to maintain enough of an exercise program not to lose much ground, physically. Reluctantly, she clambered back into the garments, giving both Vastra and Clara dirty looks as she did so.

Then Vastra approached with the other thing she disagreed with.

"Please can I not wear those?" She asked, her voice pleading rather than anything more sarcastic.

"No. Bad Ape. Bad Apes wear manacles." Vastra said, doing an excellent impression of an owner with a recalcitrant puppy, leading to a chuckle from Clara, and from Jenny herself as she offered her ankles to be fastened together.

Vastra placed the pair of rags around her wife's ankles, tying them into a pair of optimally effective edge absorbers for the restraints, before clasping the heavy steel bands around her wife's ankles, with one of her prototypical satisfied smirks.

Then the Doctor arrived, with a scowl.

"Have you finished yet?" He asked.

"Yes, Doctor, we are ready to depart." Vastra said, carefully cutting across the somewhat more irate comment Clara had been about to fire at the Time Lord.

The small party moved through to the TARDIS, parked in the small niche set aside for it in the UNIT section of the hospital, guarded by a pair of commandos, who had not taken a selfie of themselves as soon as the Doctor turned the corner.

They saluted, much to the annoyance of the Doctor, who was forced by an ingrained sense of politeness to acknowledge them, with a stiff nod.

Then the party entered the TARDIS.

 

* * *

 

Vastra, once inside the TARDIS, disappeared off, taking Jenny with her, presumably to one of the seating areas within the massive interior.

Clara remained with the Doctor in the control room.

"How was it?" He asked her.

"How was what?" she replied, looking at him with a smile.

"Working with Vastra."

"It was… interesting." Clara replied. "She's smart, obviously. Not in some areas. She nearly ate a Lord of the Admiralty just before I arrived. That said, she handled the case I helped her with surprisingly well. It was like, well, watching Sherlock Holmes in action."

"You were." The Doctor replied.

"Not news." Clara said, with a smile. "While I was there, a piece of mail from Conan Doyle arrived."

"Which one of the books was it?" He asked.

Clara thought for a long moment. "It involved a submarine plan being stolen by a foreign agent. The Bruce-Partington plans, I think."

"Was it fun?" He asked.

"I spent most of the case doing Vastra's legwork. Master of disguise, according to Conan Doyle."

"That's Jenny." He told her. "When we get back, remind her to show you the Cupboard." The capital letter seemed to drop onto the word unbidden.

"How've you been?" She asked.

"Busy."

"As always."

"Universe never seems to be able to save itself for once." He muttered.

 

* * *

 

Once they were out of sight, Vastra latched onto her wife.

"Easy, you ol' thing. I ain't goin' to be away any longer." Jenny said, feeling the desperation of the Silurian’s enclosure of her shoulders and upper body.

"I've missed you, Love." Vastra replied.

"Don't think I haven't missed you too." Jenny replied. "I keep putting on weight when I don't have you around to steal the heat from my body."

"And from other places, of course." Vastra began, with a grin.

"Not now." Jenny said, her voice taking on the rare 'Command Voice' tone she used to keep Vastra in line, seemingly wired to a receptor present in almost any person's brainstem, causing zero processing to be needed in order to follow an instruction without thinking.

Vastra almost instantly put the idea of doing anything with her wife out of her head, at least until they were finished inside Newgate.

 

* * *

 

At almost exactly the appointed time, the TARDIS groaned out of the timesteam, dropping into the prison medical centre, in almost exactly the same space it had exited with Jenny aboard, heading for hospital, four days earlier.

The warders were waiting at the exit.

"Prisoner Flint, come with us, please." They instructed Jenny.

She obeyed wordlessly, her submissive streak coming to the fore once again.

The small party was led through to the receiving area of the prison, passing various groups of warders, most of whom were grinning slightly, or even giving Jenny thumbs up.

They had never really viewed her as a prisoner, considering her to be one of their own, in a lot of ways. They'd treated her according to protocol, but there had be no casual brutality, as a number of the warders had been known to mete out to less fortunate convicts. There was also sympathy for her offence, and a general assumption that it was an injustice, based largely on class prejudices.

Outside the receiving office, Vastra and the rest of the group took seats on a padded bench, reserved for relatives and family of those being collected, before Jenny stepped inside the office.

Inside, a clerk was waiting for her behind a desk.

"Name?" He asked, in a bored tone, the typical voice of the minor bureaucrat dealing with the same routine every time the door opened into his officer.

"Jennifer Flint." Jenny replied.

"Age?"

"25."

"Normal residence?"

"Number 13, Paternoster Row."

"Any outstanding unpaid fines?"

"No."

"Anything else that the system should be aware of?"

"No." Jenny replied.

"Step through the far door." He instructed her, after rummaging in his desk for a moment, then handing her a slip of paper.

Stepping into the next room, Jenny realised that this was the property store. She stepped out to the counter, before tapping the bell gently for attention several times.

A somewhat shifty looking attendant appeared after a few moments.

"Yes?" He said.

"Sorry for interrupting your card game." She said, before handing him the chitty.

"Ah, Flint." He said. "They said you were being let out today." He said, giving the impression that she was an old lag who he was expecting back within a week, rather than an essentially upright housewife and detectives assistant.

"My belongings?" She asked.

In response, she was handed a canvas kitbag, with a cell number sewn onto it, along with a slip of paper.

Her smile at the way the paper was pushed at her was Vastra's favourite, out of all of her wife's smiles, even beating "I am your faithful ape" or "I love you". "It was the smile that suggested Jenny had just been dealt the last card needed for a royal flush, and that you would be walking home tonight in your underwear.

In response, she placed the pad on the counter, watching the suddenly very nervous attendant watch her as she untied the drawstring, and opened the bag carefully, before rooting through, identifying exactly what was missing. Unfortunately, the man hadn't found her lock picks, and the locks on her manacles could have come off of the ark.

Ten seconds later, he was backed up against the opposite wall of the property store, with a particularly evil, pointed lock pick tickling the inside of one of his nostrils, as high up his nose as it would go.

"Where. Is. My. Purse?" she demanded, her voice very level, with a very unsettling smile on her face. "Where. Is. My. Bible? And, Where. Is. My. Hairpin."

The man's eyes were very wide, and very panicked.

"Unduh duh counuh." He managed to gabble, unable to breathe through one nostril, shortly before the pick in Jenny's other hand whipped into his collar, pinning him to the wall with the same amount of effect as a thrown hunting knife.

"They'd better be. Which box?" She asked, after making the obligatory threat.

"Blue one." He choked out.

She stepped over to the box, before retrieving her roll of picks from on the counter. They'd been inside another item, which explained why a cursory search hadn't found them. It was a basic lock, cheap, and made without attention to detail. She broke through it in about fifteen seconds, much to her annoyance. Inside, she found the missing items.

Taking her hatpin, she stepped over to the attendant, still trying to free his collar from her lockpick.

He froze as it pressed into his testicles.

"If any of those items had been missing, this would be in the wall behind you right now." She stated, her matter-of-fact tone far more threatening than any low growl, suggesting as it did that this human would think nothing of impaling the testicles of a man who'd annoyed her, as would view it in the same way as taking a basket to the shops. She also showed some teeth, in what biologically would appear to be a smile.

Then she extracted the lockpick from his collar, and vaulted the counter, before collecting the shackles and stepping into a small changing booth.

"Pleasure doing business with you." She said, pulling shut the curtain.

The attendant didn't even consider trying to peek as she changed into her civilian clothing.

It was a very wise decision. Her boots contained her spare throwing knives.


	42. Chapter 42

Outside of the office, Vastra suddenly began to grin slightly.

"What's funny?" Clara asked her.

"I do not think the person in charge of property is in a very comfortable position." Vastra replied, smirking. "My suspicion is that he has tried to steal items of value from Jenny's possessions, and that my little dragon has taken action."

When she strained her own hearing, Clara could hear a slightly gurgling noise.

"Serves him right." She commented.

"You know; if you ever need somewhere to stay, where no one else knows who you are and you can rediscover yourself..." Vastra said to Clara. "You would be very welcome to come and stay at the Row for as long as you wanted."

"Thanks." Clara replied. "It wouldn't be a problem for Jenny?"

"Compared to keeping an eye on Strax?" Vastra asked, her tone joking. "No, I think having another human who takes things as she finds them would be good for her."

Clara gave Vastra a look. "And when exactly," she asked. "Would you be proposing a threesome?"

"I wouldn't." Vastra replied.

"Sure."

Vastra did her best to look like her behaviour was being taken out of context.

When Jenny came out of the property store, Vastra was still looking innocent. It was about as convincing as a dragon pretending to be a fine art collector at a Sotheby’s auction.

"What's she done?" Jenny asked, with a voice suggesting that she felt that whatever it was would most likely be more amusing than malicious.

"She's been being herself, mostly." Clara replied.

"Any trouble?"

"None that the nine inch skillet couldn't sort."

"You only used the nine inch pan?" Jenny asked. Vastra made a sissing noise. Being hit with frying pans was not her favourite activity.

"I didn't want to crack her skull."

"Why not?" Jenny asked, her expression appearing confused. "It wouldn't be the first time she's had her skull cracked for offences against table manners."

A few seconds later, Vastra fell off of the bench.

"Git up, you miserable ole lizard." Jenny snapped, not going within six feet of her wife. "You're not fooling anybody."

Vastra clambered to her feet, and wasted no time in "capturing" her wife, who made a great show of struggling without attempting any of her repertoire of throws, jabs and kicks that would normally have been employed to disable an attacker.

It was an almost bizarre sight, but, as the two twisted into a more affectionate embrace, Clara just watched them with a smile. It wasn't the oddest thing she'd seen anyone doing, by a long chalk.

As she stepped out of the prison gates, once again wearing her royal blue wooden tunic, sensible collared shirt, tie and ankle-length skirt, Jenny felt an immense sense of relief. Vastra, next to her, and whose arm she was more or less dangling from, was in a good mood.

Strax was waiting outside on the coupe, glaring at the armed sentries overlooking the prison yard.

“Boy.” He greeted Jenny. “I’m glad to see that you’ve escaped from enemy custody uninjured.”

Jenny replied by dotting a kiss on the top of his dome. “Good to see you too, Strax.” She replied.

With a secret smile, Jenny held open the door for Vastra and the Doctor, gesturing to Clara to stand next to her, until the others had boarded. Then she signalled for Clara to swing herself inside, following a few moments later and pulling the door closed herself. The two “servants” took seats at the front of the carriage, facing the Doctor and Vastra.

There was little conversation. Vastra was doing her very best to look utterly innocent, once again, which warned Jenny in advance that she was saving up to be trouble at a later date. That was very much business as usual.

* * *

The carriage yard at the back of the Row was as warm as usual, on a February morning, when Vastra clambered out of the carriage. Jenny, following immediately behind her cold blooded wife, saw her wobble slightly. The Silurian recovered quickly, though, and, at a somewhat greater speed than she preferred to demonstrate, headed straight for the kitchen.

Inside, she was already pouring water all over the floor, and the occasional dribble into the kettle, when Jenny caught up with her.

“Give that ‘ere, you.” She said, firmly taking possession of the kettle from her wife. Typically, Vastra had been trying to pour the water into the spout. Jenny showed her, without too much ‘So there’ how to open the top of the kettle and fill it from the mains. Vastra looked slightly grumpy, but simply resorted to pecking her maid on top of the head.

Then, rather than allowing the Silurian anywhere near the actual stove, she put on the tea, sending Vastra and the Doctor through to the drawing room. One of her next jobs would be to reinstate the consulting room’s supply of tropical plants.

* * *

“So.” She asked Clara, once the door was safely shut. “How was she?”

“Er…” Clara replied. “Well, she usually more or less behaved herself.”

“What did she do?” Jenny asked, in a long suffering tone of voice.

“She decided it would be _funny_ to lock me in some sort of leather contraption that pinned my elbows together behind my back.” Clara said. “The muscles involved are still sore.”

“She didn’t!” Jenny muttered. Words were going to be had.

“Then, when I fainted as a result, I came around to find her looking…” She gestured at her chest.

Jenny just gave her a horrified look. “What did you do?” She asked.

“I spiked her tea with curry powder.” Clara replied, with a grin. “Then I threw a bucket of water over her.”

Jenny gave her a grin back. “She backed off afterwards, I suspect.”

“Until she tried to get me wearing a bloody chemise that would be illegal in a harem. Then she tried to put a collar on me.”

“Tell me the rest of the story.” Jenny said, holding a mug of tea out to Clara. “I need to know what to serve her tonight, and how rotten it should be.”

* * *

Once they were in the drawing room, both Vastra and the Doctor slipped into Silurian.

“How has it been?” The Doctor asked.

“Well enough, Doctor.” Vastra replied. “She even helped me solve a crime.”

“Oh?”

“A man had stolen the design for an underwater hunting boat, and killed someone who tried to prevent him from selling them on to the person who made the largest bid. Clara helped me hunt him down, and hand him over to the law enforcers to face punishment, along with the man who brought the designs.”

“Was she injured?”

“No. She did very well, during the hunt.”

“I am pleased. How was her food preparation?”

“Very passable.” Vastra replied. “Her _tagine_ ,” she dropped back into English for a word that had no translation. “Was every bit as pleasant as anything my mate has ever produced.”

“I am relieved.” The Doctor replied.

“I fear, however, that I have performed actions against her to which she rightly took offence. I made mistakes by assuming that she would be as tolerant of me as my mate is, and would share most of her physical abilities.”

“I see.” He growled. “I trust that you have made your apologies to her?”

“I have done so, Star Lord.” Vastra replied, using the Silurian name for the Time Lords.

“Were they accepted?”

“It is my belief that they were.” Vastra replied. “At the very least, she did not object to continuing to share her warmth with me that night, although not as my mate does.”

Then conversation turned to other matters, Vastra’s laugh rising several times as the Doctor related a particular adventure to her.

* * *

Once they had finished discussing matters related to Vastra, the two ‘servants’ got on with the cooking. With the two of them splitting the workload, it made enough of a difference that they were able to prepare a more complex meal than the usual fare. Clara, following the careful instructions given to her by Jenny, began slicing vegetables that went well together, and dropping them into a pot.

A few minutes into the preparations, Strax stuck his head around the door.

“Is there anything that you need me to do?” He asked. “I understand that unit catering is most efficient when the maximum number of personnel are involved.”

“Yes.” Jenny replied. “I need you to go and get eight of the little items of baked goods known as rolls from the bakery. I will be inspecting them when you return, which I would expect to be in less than ten minutes, and without having attracted the attention of the authorities in any way.”

“I will carry out my instructions.” Strax said, briefly saluting, before turning on his heel, and heading for the bakery.

Clara gave Jenny a bit of a google-eyed look, as she dropped three sliced parsnips into the vegetable soup, before picking up a pair of leeks delivered by the grocer the previous day, and slicing them.

“If I wasn’t that specific, he could come back with just about anything, and end up causing all sorts of mayhem.” She explained. Jenny was standing at the stove, with her eighteen inch skillet, frying close to a dozen rashers of bacon.

“Ah.” Was Clara’s only response, as she tipped the first leek into the soup, carefully sliced.

Just after the various components of a bacon and winter vegetable soup began the process of simmering on the stove, Strax returned from the bakers, bearing eight crusty white bread rolls, along with a bag of what appeared to be berliner doughnuts.

“I have returned.” He announced, sticking his head around the door.

“Show me.” Jenny said, moving over to him.

In response, he laid out the two brown bags, one of which, when investigated, contained the rolls he’d been sent for. The berliners, though, were a surprise.

“Strax?” Jenny asked. “Why did you get a packet of berliners?”

“I thought that they would be a pleasant gift, to celebrate your escape from captivity.” He replied.

Jenny dotted a kiss onto his dome in reply.

* * *

The main course of the meal, it was decided, would be a joint of cured ham. Jenny, bustling slightly in the heat of the kitchen, showed Clara how to mix a honey and cinnamon glaze for the joint, before disappearing into the vegetable store, and firmly pushing the other girl out of the way, when she attempted to return to the slicing board.

“You did all the veg for the soup.” She stated, gently turning Clara toward the joint and the basting brush. Without pausing, she began bringing down the large cleaver she’d selected from the knife rack, forged, like all of the knives in her kitchen, from the same metal as their katanas, as a reward for their services to the Japanese Emperor.  It easily passed through her vegetables, allowing her to quarter the last of her potatoes with ease. She made a mental note that she would need to refill the root cellar at the next opportunity.

Once the potatoes were diced, she dropped them into her frying pan, frying them for about two minutes in goose fat, before dropping them into a baking tin and then placing them into the oven, along with some more parsnips and a couple of onions.

Clara, while Jenny had been taking care of the vegetables, had been painting the meat with the glaze, and had just about finished doing so when the last of the vegetables went in the oven. Jenny fetched out a roasting tin, into which the meat was dropped, before both of them washed their hands.

“Vastra isn’t getting any desert.” Jenny explained. “Unfortunately, she can’t be relied on to sit with her hands on her lap, so everyone else isn’t going to have anything either.” Jenny quietly tapped the doughnuts, as she spoke. “These will stay in the kitchen.”

* * *

About an hour after the soup had been put on, Jenny rang the gong for dinner. Vastra, showing her usual level of interest, darted straight through to the dining room, catching Clara in the act of laying the last of the tableware. The sterling silver cutlery and elegantly painted earthenware were supplemented by what appeared to be simple goblets, rather than the mug Vastra had previously used to drink out of. The Silurian’s napkin ring was in front of her usual seat, into which she dived, shortly before Jenny hauled through the cauldron containing the soup course.

Vastra visibly perked up at the smell of bacon. Clara, at a signal from Jenny, headed back through to the kitchen, and extracted the rolls from the bread-oven, decanting them into an ornate wicker basket, lined with an embroidered cloth showing London landmarks.

The soup, she decided, watching the way that Vastra actually used her cutlery, and savoured each spoonful, was clearly a success. When she tried it herself, she fully agreed with Vastra that it was delicious. Jenny, sitting next to Clara, grinned slightly, before nodding.

The soup course lasted about ten minutes.

Then it was onto the main course. Vastra once again perked up at the smell of honey and cinnamon glazed drifting from the pan, and was very willing to help serve the meat, being warded off with a small ladle, as she approached with the carving fork.

Clara helped serve the meal, equally spreading the vegetables between the four plates, and enjoying the flavours that rose from the dishes containing the vegetables.

Again, Vastra actually used her cutlery, making what sounded like cooing noises as she slowly worked her way through the meal.

Once they had finished eating, Jenny firmly dispatched Clara away from the kitchen.

“I’ll do the washin’ up later.” She said. “You’ve been doin’ everythin’ for me all week.” Clara merely nodded, noting the mutability of the girl’s accent whenever she spoke.

* * *

It was that time, finally, she realised.

Clara looked around the house that had almost become home over the last week with a wistful expression. The ornaments on the mantelpiece had become familiar friends, a sign that the world was normal and safe, or at least as safe as a house where the letterbox had a built-in scorpion trap ever was.

Vastra was standing behind her, with a small, elegantly filigreed leather box.

“I know you… consider items like this demeaning.” Vastra said, her expression as nervous as she’d seen from the Silurian, during their acquaintance. “But I’d still like to offer it to you as a gift, and a thank-you for tolerating my foibles for the last week.”

Clara was faintly reminded of an autistic child in her English class for a few moments, the sheer earnestness of the offer almost making up for the slightly unusual gift Vastra was offering her.

“I may not wear it,” she told the Silurian. “But I will value it regardless.” She accepted the box, opening it briefly to confirm that the extremely expensive collar and pet tag were inside.

Vastra’s smile would have very much disoriented her, when she was first around the Silurian. There were too many teeth for it to seem anything other than a threatening gesture, something you’d expect from an animal, not a person. Now, she paid more attention to her eyes when the Silurian tried facial expressions.

The Silurian drifted away to pester Jenny for food as Clara continued her circuit. The over-night bag provided by the TARDIS had been neatly packed the night before. Her nightdress was folded on top of it, and she unfastened the catches of the carpetbag, before slotting in her nightdress.

Vastra clambered up the stairs, with what appeared to be a baguette ‘concealed’ under her veil. Behind her, Clara could hear yells. It wasn’t long before Jenny was in hot pursuit of her wife, armed with a skillet pan once again.

Clara just smiled, before stepping out of the back door, where the Doctor was waiting with the TARDIS. She just hugged him, before stepping inside.

“Where to?” He asked.

“Home.” She replied. “If I don’t make that English class, you are in so much trouble.”

He just smiled, before she headed into the back of the TARDIS, and recovered her clothes. Teaching a class, after all of this, would be a relaxing experience.

* * *

From the rear steps, Vastra and Jenny stood, arms around the other, and watched as the blue box dematerialised.

A few moments later, they turned away together, and headed inside. They had some catching up to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be a bonus chapter added, if I end up writing it. I've had requests for the what happens next bedroom scene.


End file.
